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UNITED STATES OF AMERICi. 



MORTARA 



Mrs. HELEN ALDEICH De KROYET 



I heard it in the breezes, and my heart shaped it out of the 
hoarse voices of the winds, — He will come again, he will come 
again I 



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CAMBRIDGE 
Printed at t^e Bi^jersiUe Prtgd 

1887 









Copyright, 1886, 
Bt Mrs. HELEN ALDRICH De KROYFT. 



DEDICA TION 

Looking back through the years to all those loho "in 
their lives " have been " lovely and pleasant " to me, my 
heart selects one too great to more than wear as a flower 
on her bosom the dedication to any work of mine ; still, this 
is my soul's best, and, eager to do her ever so little rever- 
ence, here upon its whitest page I inscribe her name, — 

Mrs. E. M. Hardy, of Norfolk, Virginia, 
pausing the while to set it around with grateful memories ; 
and so leave it in the world, like a thing of light, shining 
forever in its own unborrowed lustre. 



PREFACE. 



I HAVE lived much that I have not written, 
but I have written nothing that I have not Hved, 
and the story of this book is but a plaintive re- 
frain wrung from the overburdened song of my 
life ; while the tides of feeling, winding down 
the lines, had their sources in as many broken 
upheavals of my own heart. 

The day that I was a bride I was a widow ; 
and finding me thus weeping and alone, the fates 
stole away the light from my eyes, leaving me 
henceon to walk with the angels, one on either 
hand ; who, themselves guiding, brought me ere 
long to a rosy glen by the sea, where resided one 
of lofty mien and of speech and manner courtly. 
Much learning he had, and many tongues he 
spoke. The gathered lustre of all lands shone 
in the grace of his presence, as the charity that 
comes of knowing all religions lent a charm to 
his words, and added potency to the magic of his 
smile. But most he knew to heal a wounded 
heart, to dry away tears, and bring smiles in their 



VI PREFACE. 

stead. Knew to gild with linings fair the clouds 
himself could not disperse; nor failed the sub- 
tlety of his art e'en to rally hope when hope 
was dead ! 

The name they named him by was goodly, 
ancient, and renowned. It was the name his 
Syriac fathers wore ; and straight on down 
through long ancestral lines of warriors, kings, 
and princes, flowed the haughty Hebraic tides 
that crimsoned in his veins. Yet, of all his 
graces, modesty was the chiefest ; nor ever 
boasted he of aught save that Honor was to him 
a ruling star, whose parallax held him ever to 
God and the right. 

Such was Mortara, noblest of his line ; and, 
having thus announced him, gentle reader, beg- 
ging leave, I would fain introduce him to you as 
the heaven-appointed hero of my foreshadowed 
way. 



MORTARA. 



PART I. 



New York, March 7, 1849. 

MoRTARA, — But for these far-away flowers, 
still whispering of the orange groves and balmy 
breezes whence they came, I might mistake your 
letter for a delio-htful continuation of our last 
walk among those grand old trees by the Bay, 
when it seemed that the world itself, by some 
strange turn, had drifted around on a side that 
looked away toward heaven, and all of life had 
purpled into a dream too rich and too beautiful 
to last ; when time, even, grew prodigal and sped 
the moments on golden wings as arm in arm we 
rustled through the falling leaves, rainbow-hued 
from the Tyrian dyes of autumn. 

Ah ! that morning, who can imagine it ? and 
that walk, who can recall it? until, returning, 
we paused a little by the gate and one came 
running with those long-waited-for letters from 
your home beyond the sea. 

" One is from my father," you said ; and so, 
excusing yourself, you went to your room. My 
quick ear followed your tread, heard you lock 
the door, and I knew that you were alone with 



28 MORTARA. 

the joys and sorrows of far-off loved ones break- 
ing in saddened sweetness upon your exile heart. 

Hurrying away from lunch that day I did not 
stop in the drawing-room as usual, wondering if, 
after having been so long oblivious to all around 
you, my humble self would ever be sought for 
or remembered again. Soon, though, a valet 
came with your card. Meeting me at the foot 
of the stairs, you said : — 

" Would you like to cluub the big hill this 
afternoon, or Mount Pisgah, as you call it ? " 

" Providing you will promise to spy out a 
Canaan for me there," I replied. 

" Or one for myself, — would not that do as 
well?" was your quick rejoinder. 

So, jocund and lively, we started ; but on the 
way and after reaching the summit you were 
taciturn, as I thought, or too reflective, consid- 
ering that you had invited me to walk with you. 
I had asked for all your home friends, of whom 
you seemed inclined to say little ; and then, 
yielding to your spell, I too grew silent, and 
leaning my head back against the tree beneath 
whose shade we were sitting, I sought solace for 
the gorgeous scenes that lay around me by pic- 
turing brighter ones in heaven, and wondering if 
two dear eyes there were looking on me. Un- 
conscious before how much the last few weeks 
had done to fade the memory of those two dear 
eyes from my heart, I Avas just beginning to re- 
proach myself when very slowly and very sol- 
emnly you said : — 



MORTARA. 29 

" No one has a right to count himself miser- 
able who has not felt to his heart's core the 
branding sting of banishment. Then he may 
indeed pity Cain, and know at least how to sym- 
pathize with Satan himself. Exiled for the boy- 
ish offense of refusing to bear arms against the 
land of my mother, my friends were at first san- 
guine of procuring my return. Seventeen long 
years, tliough, have rolled away since that hope 
died from my soul, and I have since lived with 
the sole idea oi amassing a fortune sufficient to 
bring my entire family and all my friends out of 
the country, and hold jubilee with them for at 
least six months or a year. But these letters to- 
day bring me word that my mother has become 
too feeble and my father too old and infirm even 
to journey to the line to meet me." Then, paus- 
ing a moment as if reflecting upon your disap- 
pointment, you turned full around to me and 
continued : — 

" Yes, please God, this is henceforth to be my 
country and my home ; and will you, dearest, 
can you, be all to me on this side of the world ? 
I do not know when I began to love you, or how. 
I seem born to love you, to protect you, to care 
for you, and call you mine, and next to the pain 
of beholding my beloved parents no more is the 
thought of going away from here without you. 
I came back from New York ostensibly to await 
these letters, but in truth I returned only to pass 
a little time more with you, and then, perhaps. 



30 MORTAR A. 

take you away with me to Europe, and after 
meeting my friends, go to see Waltholl of Ger- 
many, and make him unveil the world again to 
those dear eyes of yours, — not that for the world 
I would ever wish myself to be less needful to 
your happiness than now, while certainly noth- 
ing in the world could ever make you more pre- 
cious or more beautiful to me." 

Oh ! how near heaven comes to us sometimes. 
That peaceful hill, crowned with evergreens and 
oaks, sung to forever by the breezes and man- 
tled in sunshine, was Pisgah indeed; and lo ! 
through the rifted clouds there came to me a 
very angel, bearing in his Abrahamic bosom the 
Canaan of rest, of home and peace and love, 
that my poor tired heart had longed for, ached 
for, and wept for, but never dared to hope for. 

Ah ! Mortara, I almost wonder now that I did 
not fall down and worship you outright when, 
with your voice still faltering from bidding adieu 
to your long-cherished hope, you pledged to me 
not only the blessed largess of my soul's other, 
nobler self, but restored to me again my poor, 
broken, lost self, all radiant and new-born in the 
light of your love. Verily, were the past a des- 
ert and the future a tomb, that one memory 
were an oasis green and sunny enough to make 
it all an Eden ; for what mattered it to me then 
though mine eyes were veiled ? I had won you, 
than whom none wiser or nobler or more elegant 
walks the world, and away, too, from the brilliant 



MORTARA. 31 

many. It was enough ; and listen to me, Mor- 
tara, from that moment, from that golden hour 
that still spreads its autumn radiance through all 
my being, I have held you and your love only 
as one holds a solemn trust that may be re- 
manded at any time. 

All hope of any permanent provision being 
made for me has passed away. Those who would 
serve me have not the means, and those who 
could are robbed of the will, — perhaps by some 
wise angel who sees it better that I be not over- 
blessed. Judge, then, how well I know the 
worth of these words from your far-away cabin, 
as you call it : — 

" 1 ask only the happiness of bringing you 
here and living for you and you alone ; " but, 
dearest Mortara, whatever comes, I can neither 
be yours nor allow you to befriend me. Indeed, 
by the very greatness of some blessings, our 
hearts are made to know that they are not in- 
tended for us, but sent only that we may look 
on them and learn self-denial. 

You will be angry, but oh ! chide me gently, 
for my heart is a bruised thing, and but for 
your letter to-day my every thought were man- 
tled with despair. Since it came I have been 
walking and thinking of you until this whole 
place has grown warm and beautiful in the light 
of your loving presence, while in the heavy beat- 
ino; of the winds I hear ao;ain the roar of the 
waves and above them the words : — 



32 MORTAR A. 

" Cling to me ; I shall save you or die with 
you ! " 

Oh, thou dearest, bravest, noblest, and best, 
how can I ever forget that terrible scene ? And 
when at last the shore was reached and you lay 
there, your great heart panting for the life you 
had well-nigh given to save mine, what agony I 
endured rubbing those cold, dear hands and 
bathing them with my tears, praying you to 
live, to awaken and speak to me but once more! 

Alas ! my generous friend, what do I not owe 
you ? My life and my heart surely. But though 
I had them and a thousand times more to be- 
stow, I should still chide you for the doubts you 
persist in conjuring from that one little incident 
that so marred our last evenino- too-ether and did 
me such infinite wrong. Suppose you were about 
to confide the one great secret of your life to my 
keeping and ask me again to go with you. I 
did not know your thoughts, or your intentions, 
although as if divining and answering them all I 
was just saying to myself : " It may not, cannot 
be," and instinctively withdrew my hand from 
yours and folded my arms across my breast, as if 
in all the dark w^orld there was left only me. 
But when you turned and almost commanded 
me to explain the feeling, or the action, I wept, 
because it was just so much more than I could 
bear. My heart was too full, and the jostled 
tears rained down over my cheeks while vou 
were cruel enough to neither let me hide them 
nor wipe them away. 



MORTAR A. 33 

Dear, noble Mortara, believe me, it was no 
tlioiiglit o£ another nor doubt nor fear of you, 
whom I have tried so much not to love. I do 
love you, though^ and now that you are so far 
away and I am writing you with my own hand, 
I do not blush to tell you so. Indeed, as two 
streams cannot flow in the same channel but the 
larger swallows up the lesser, so all the love my 
heart has ever known now winds and murmurs 
its music to you ; and while I would be generous 
enough to judge as I would be judged, a con- 
scious lack of power to win and hold the love of 
one who has seen so much of the world and 
waded through the adoring glances of so many 
makes me fear lest, in my all-confiding and all- 
trusting simplicity, you find only solace for the 
loved and the lost. Is it so, or do I perchance 
owe all to your large pity that, like the mantle 
of generous Boaz, expanded and wrapped me in 
the moment we met ? 

The angels, though, do not hold out their 
hands to us longer than all day long, and lest I 
weary and turn away the only real one Heaven 
has vouchsafed me, I hasten, dearest, noblest 
Mortara, to say to thee, as ever, Dommus tecum, 
while I pray thee once more to write soon and 
come soon to Thy ever more than friend, 

Helen. 

3 



34 MORTAR A. 



New York, April 7, 1849. 

MoRTARA, — Madam S read me the thick 

sheet of your letter, and I repHed to it as usual 
in her room, she often coming to look over my 
shoulder. But the thin one, designed for my 
heart alone, I reserved until Benoni came up last 
evening to take me to the opera and lent me his 
eyes for its precious perusal ; and then again 
when we returned, as a kind of encore to my 
Salva, that his sweet strains might follow me 
into the dream-land ! 

Some good fairy must have visited your cabin, 
and, charmed with its occupant, turned it into a 
castle, since it can afford to set apart two such 
rooms for an imaginary guest and a dark maid 
to drape them with flowers in compliment to her 
fancied coming ! 

Oh ! tell me, Mortara, do you really love me 
so, and am I indeed so verily with you ? Your 
great heart, running over with that beautiful 
benignity that always warms in your words and 
melts from your eyes, makes your cabin or castle, 
whatever it be, seem to me nothing less than a 
little city of refuge from the world. Were I to 
rise up and fly to it, though, I should doubtless 
meet on the way, or far down by the gate, some 
angel of destiny with flaming sword turning 



MORTAR A. 35 

every way ; for alas ! Mortara, what you dream 
of can never, never be. No, like a planet 
wrapped in the meshes of a distant star, I am 
forever chained from thee ; and though thy 
black eyes be windows to love's happy Eden, 
still I may never look into them ; and though 
thine arms be indeed belts of gold and thyself a 
pillar of trust, still thy way is not my way. Ah, 
no, Mortara, in heaven I were nearer thee than 
now. As the stars cross paths, so from half a, 
world away we have met and whispered words of 
love only for landmarks to our souls, forever 
seeking each other and God and the true. 

You seem always half glad for the rough 
ways of life that you may help to bear some one 
over them. What wonder, then, that my weak 
soul should be forever longing to flee away and 
take shelter beneath the wings of thy might ? 
But oh, Mortara, if there were no other obsta- 
cle, I could not be selfish enough to sombre all 
that should bring gladness to thee by linking 
the clouds of my sky to the sunshine of thine. 
And yet, when I remember that unlooked-for 
coming in of the tide when you so nobly risked 
life and all to save me, and again when you 
blistered those dear hands to save me from fire, 
I can only shut mine eyes and weep tears that I 
have not a hand like Providence to weigh out 
blessing to thee forever, forever ! 

But wait until you have visited R . Per- 
haps you will find there that the angels have at 



36 MORTAR A. 

least let me turn your steps toward the beautiful 
and the good. Wait until you have seen my 
fascinating" friend Elenore ; if herself fails to 
charm you, her music surely will. Therefore, 
be sure to see her ; and if you are not less gal- 
lant than I imagine, like Anthony at the banquet 
of Cleopatra, you will at least offer your heart 
for what your eyes do feast on ! 

Madam S is too lynx-eyed and too all-per- 
vading not to have divined the struggle going 
on in my soul ; and true to her avowed j^enchant 
for torture, she deliglits in telling me over and 
over how perfectly you and Miss Elenore are 
fitted for each other ; even talks of your wed- 
ding, and seems to have put it all down in her 
own mind as a settled thing. Well, Miss Elenore 
is brilliant and beautiful, surely ; and you, — 
ah ! what shall I say ? — noble and wise and 
good enough to have been the prophet seer at 
the gates of Zuph ; which you were verily to me 
from the day of my entrance into that rosy glen 
by the sea, where, whether we walked, rode, or 
climbed the hills together, followed up the brooks 
or gathered shells by the sea, rowed our little 
bark out upon the waves or drifted along the 
murmuring shore, every day, every hour was to 
my soul but a fresh anointing from the store- 
houses of your knowledge. Indeed, hanging 
upon your eloquent lips I followed you over all 
lands, lingering now at one court and now at 
another ; now treading along the art galleries 



MORTAR A. 37 

of Wurtemberg, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Rome, and 
then away across the deserts to the beautiful 
Orient and the land of your fathers, whose Tem- 
ple alone filled the world with its sacred gran- 
deur and emblazoned all time with its holy 
splendors ; until at last, all unaware, I sat com- 
muning with you up in the high places and 
breaking spirit bread with you upon the very 
house-tops of your love. What God would have 
He paves the way to ; and I needed just that 
beautiful overlooking of the world through your 
eyes, and just this new strength in my soul that 
loving you has given me, as a kind of renuncia- 
tory blessing for the cold, isolate life that lies 
before me. 

Dear, noble Mortara, I have never had cour- 
age to tell you how I know that our paths are 
never to be joined ; yet I do know that the lines 
of my destiny have fallen too dark among the 
shadows for any one this side of heaven to bear 
me company through them. 

I must make the journey sad and alone ; and 
yet, dearest, not all alone, for wherever I go or 
whatever my lot is thou wilt be to me forever, as 
now, — though remote, yet never gone ; though 
distant, yet always near. Alas ! I have come to 
say my prayers, even, with my soul mantled in 
your love, and my thoughts commune with the 
angels in words that I have learned from your 
lips. Indeed, you are a part of me, my other, 
dearer, nobler self, and I can never, never, 



38 MORTAR A. 

never for one moment separate you from my 
thoughts, or ever, ever, ever tear your memory 
from my heart, over which I have set up your 
promise to be here soon hke a bow of promise, 
watery with tears and purple with gladness. 
New York, though, is neither New Orleans nor 
Havana, both of which Benoni says you are to 
take in your way, and I fear you will find it 
dull here as well as cold ; but oh ! I am here, 
and when you come my heart will be here too, 
and summer and flowers, love and gladness, all 
of which follow in thy train, as I pray sweet 
ccmdida ^;«»; to attend thee, and white-winged 
angels to stand forever thy watchful guard ! 

Helen. 



MORTAR A. 39 



Stone Cottage, July 17, 1849. 

MoRTARA, — While the east is kindling with 
coming light and the dews are heavy on the 
mown grass, I have hnrried me from happy 
dreams to bid you hasten to this sunny vale of 
meadows and groves where simply to live is bless- 
ing enough for all the day long, and at eve we 
will rock away upon the river or follow up its 
winding way, treading on the soft shadows of 
nightfall that come to sleep among the bushes 
and the flowers. 

You entreat me to nevermore freeze you with 
the word friend ; but oh ! how talk to thee of 
love while to call thee friend is happiness so 
great? Yet think not that I doubt you, for, 
Mortara, I doubt nothing save my ability to 
make you happy. 

Confidence is a plant of rapid growth when 
watered by the tears and dews of love. Beside, 
many moons have come and waned and all the 
seasons have changed since our friendship be- 
gan, and by the light of the past we should 
surely judge something of the future. But oh ! 
is it in man's nature, is it in his love, to be al- 
ways thus unselfish and thus devoted? Might 
there not come days when the heart's dial would 
turn too slowly and the hours hang too wearily ? 



40 MORTARA. 

Tell me, thou dearest, noblest, and best ; thou 
temple, priest, and oracle, speak and I will trust 
thee ! Where thou art not, loneliness is in thy 
place ; no voice like thine, no arm so dear ; and 
as the day makes us forget the night, so thou 
drivest all gloom from my thoughts. 

Yet, dearest, loving thee is selfish, and my 

* heart chides the love it cannot help. I could 

leave all for thee, but oh ! leaving all I should 

leave thee too, for they who forsake duty may 

take no good thing with them. 

Alas ! Mortara, even at the risk of your ridi- 
cule, I must tell you that five summers ago, sit- 
ting amid the dazzling beams of the sun, and 
every thought broad awake with the stirring ex- 
citements of school, a kind of hallucination or 
momentary vision passed before me, wherein I 
myself saw myself journeying through what 
seemed ages upon ages of darkness, — darkness 
that blotted away everjrthing and then took on a 
shape of its own that rose up before me like an 
old time-worn Cheops, only a million times more 
vast, stretching its top away into the blackness 
of the sky, while its base rested dark on the 
earth and filled me with an indescribable fear. 
Still, impelled by an influence that I could not 
resist, I steadily approached the forbidding pres- 
ence and found countless little circles of gold 
shining through its gloomy surface. Only theii 
tiny creased edges were visible ; yet moved by 
the same impelling force that had brought me 



MORTARA. 41 

within their reach, very timidly I fell to picking- 
them out with one hand and dropping them into 
the other. Slowly, one by one, I was picking 
them out with the right hand and dropping 
them into the left, when straightway all sweet 
plans for the dear ones in this cottage home 
began to run through my thoughts, and, as it 
seemed, absorbed the gold, or bore away the 
shining little pieces from my hands almost faster 
than I was able to gather them. So on, on, 
through what seemed weary ages, I myself saw 
myself patiently gathering, gathering, but never 
possessing. Always moving, too, or going, going, 
as it seemed, with the same old overawing, world- 
like presence forever bent above and around, 
until all at once the gold ceased on the side of it 
toward me, and in its stead came quantities of a 
dark green material in lumps, rolls, or bunches 
that only possession, or taking in my hands, made 
golden. Of that, too, I gathered as before, gath- 
ered, gathered, wandered, toiled, and gathered, 
until at last the dark green material also disap- 
peared, the base only whence it rose remaining 
ofreen — when farther in toward the heart of the 
gloomy old presence the gold shone out again ; 
but this time, instead of shining little pieces as 
at first, it came in squares like tablets or slates, 
standing on their edges and so tightly wedged 
together that it seemed impossible ever to move 
them. Yet I touched them and they came out to 
me ; myself seemed to draw them as by a kind of 



42 MORTAR A. 

right, and whereas all before had merely passed 
through my hands, now all remained with me ; 
and when I had folded in my arms as much as I 
could well carry, with something like the pride 
of possession warming in my thoughts, I jour- 
neyed on, on again ; but in a new direction now 
and faster than before, the old overawing shape 
the darkness had taken on no longer keeping 
pace. Finally, reaching a height that seemed to 
overlook the future as well as the past, I espied 
far out in the distance a break in the great dome 
of night, and thence a little wave of soft sweet 
liofht rollinof toward me. Faster it came and 
larger it grew, spreading out upon the fleeing 
clouds until it seemed that heaven itself had 
opened, and all its glories were beaming above 
and around me. Then I turned and saw one 
standing apart with downcast eyes, and of face 
and mien such as I had never looked on, — one 
who made no sign, spoke no word, his knowledge 
of or companionship to the long dark way I had 
been coming seeming rather self -conveyed, where- 
at the vision ended and all was the same to me 
as before. 

Now call it a msio7i, or call it what you will, 
in the few twinkling seconds of its duration, 
with every sense barred to the outer world, led 
by some unknown law of our being, I was away, 
away, following down the deep-drawn lines to 
my own destiny. Look ! hardly two years had 
elapsed when Death robbed my young life deso- 



MORTARA. 43 

late, and over the new-made grave by which I 
stood and mourned a moon rose swift upon my 
sky that was to watch even itself turned into 
blackness ; and ere it waned I awoke but to find 
the sun, moon, and stars indeed gone down for- 
ever, and the clouds of a relentless night fallen 
cold and thick around me. 

Thus on the great clock of fate my destiny 
had been marked, exactly as foreshadowed to me 
in the vision whose haunting shades I have in- 
voked until nearly every phase of it has unveiled 
to my soul its fullest meaning. 

First, the everywhere towering old pillar-like 
presence, that might have been let down from 
the clouds or piled up from the ages of the ages, 
was but a gloomy symbol of the world, or what 
the world was to be to me in the darkness, — an 
everywhere towering, forbidding presence, just 
as I have found it ; and all the more towering 
and forbidding, too, because of the gold shining 
so dmily through its gloomy surface. 

In God's own good time, though, those mystic 
little circles will not only appear, but the means 
for gathering them also be provided ; and pos- 
sibly the little book that I wrote you about is 
to have something to do with it. Do you see ? 
Although no Aladdin lamp to the world, it may 
still prove to my hand the coveted, wand-like 
" Open Sesame ! " At all events, as the dark- 
ness of the visio7i and the two scenes preceding 
it have so strangely come to pass, so all that 



44 MORTAR A. 

seemed to grow out of them is to be translated 
in the sternest reality upon the years of my life. 
I know it, I see it, and when I have explained to 
you the nature of those plans that ran so mys- 
tically through my thoughts and absorbed the 
little golden pieces almost faster than I was able 
to gather them, you will be convinced that, al- 
though " a day of no open vision," there must 
be still those in heaven mighty enough to trail 
before mortal eyes shadows of the events them- 
selves are forging. 

But oh ! would that you or some one might 
turn seer indeed, and divine to my longing soul 
the closing scene, when the heavens opened and 
all their pent-up glories broke again upon my 
enraptured soul. Yes, where, oh, where in all 
the dark confines of time sleeps that dawn for 
me ? or must I indeed look for it beyond the sun- 
set and beyond the shadows ? Alas ! God only 
knows. 

But, Mortara, thou noblest and best, whatever 
that visioti was, after having lived it over and 
over in my thoughts and traced and retraced 
through it my dark foreshadowed way, I know 
that the angels have placed this in their books 
even as they have bottled my tears : in this 
world we are never to be one ; no, never, never, 
never. What is to be no hand may stay, and 
despite the veiled eyes and the helplessness that 
now girts me around, there is a foreshadowed 
something in the world for me to do, — a some- 



MORTARA. 45 

thing- that will take long, long years, — years of 
loneliness and weariness and anxiety, and ere my 
work is done I shall be no more what I am. 

Here, then, waiting to meet thee, I part with 
thee, as in this life I have parted from all bright 
things ; parted from them, alas ! only the 
brighter to bear them on in my thoughts, just 
as in the soul's beautiful ideal the star of thy 
love will be forever rising over my heart and 
shedding its pale light along the lonely future. 

Helen. 



PART II. 

New York, December 4, 1849. 

MoRTARA, — Oh, tell me, did I then after all 
promise to be thine, thine, all thine, forever 
thine ? Ah ! how memory reproaches while my 
poor heart coaxes fear to silence. 

But, mine own beautiful and best, you will 
surely wait for me the two years, or until the 
love-work foreshadowed in the vision is ended. 
That lies next to my hope of heaven, and you 
must surely leave me to accomplish it. Not even 
if you could furnish the means to effect the same 
end would it be the same thing to me. No, I 
must live for it, toil for it, and pray for it, and 
so do at least a part of what they who watch in 
heaven have called me to do ; and then, dearest, 
noblest Mortara, may our Heavenly Father for- 
give the rest while I go to be happy with love 
and thee, happy with the one being in the world 
whose radiant image lies glassed so deep in my 
soul that, whether dreaming or waking, by the 
star of love I forever behold him there ! 

It was weakness, I know ; but in that awful 
moment when you held the world in such fright- 
ful array on the one hand, and yourself, your 
love, your devotion, and your dear open arms on 
the other, it was just as impossible not to fly to 



48 MORTARA. 

you as it is always impossible not to love you. 
The angels witnessed our pledges and wrote them 
down, mayhap with smiles and mayhap with 
tears — God only knows. You have two years, 
though, to take back your part of them in if you 
choose, and certainly no one in heaven or out of 
it could have the hardihood to blame you. 

I have received the ring set with a star and 
covering the words : " Speravi in te ; " and 
while my heart chides me I wear it, dearest, the 
rich covenant of thy love, and would I could cir- 
cle thy life in a sky as starry and as golden ! 
Would for one hour, even, I might round such 
brightness upon thy way as thou thyself bringest 
to me ! Thou art the Sun, with my Venus heart 
transiting about thee. Thou the star, with my 
soul empaled upon the shining disc of thy love, 
the where thy smiles make the morning, and thy 
whispers and thy kisses dewy evenings, rosy and 
star-Hghted like visions in love's happy dreams. 

Now I forgive the angels the hiding away of 
the day since, themselves guiding, they brought 
me to thee. But alas ! how ever repay the 
wealth of thy love? What vial add to the 
stream of thy happiness, what care lift from thy 
heart, or what burden help thee to bear? Oh ! 
nothing, nothing ! I am dependence' self, and 
through life long I can only hang upon thy dear 
arm, trusting all to thy guidance sweet, as erst 
I clunof to thee for life amid the waves of the 
sea. 



MORTARA. 49 

When wandering far from Eden's sunny bow- 
ers, had the love angel called after beautiful Eve 
and bade her return to Paradise and its streams 
and its flowers, she had not crept back more tim- 
idly to its Orient gate than comes my heart to 
such happiness and thee. Ah ! Mortara, it is 
bhss to trust thee and it is heaven to love thee. 
Forgive all, then, and "Thy God shall be my 
God, and whither thou goest I will go." 

May thy years be many and their seasons all 
golden autumns, rich in purple clusters and gar- 
nered delights! The love angels watch thee 
and bear me word soon that thou art well and 
happy ! Helen. 



60 MORTARA. 



New York, December 27, 1849. 

MoRTARA, — Saturday morning I walked with 
Minnie to hear your celebrated Rabbi from Eng- 
land ; and when, toward the close of his elo- 
quent discourse, he came to dwell with rapture 
upon Israel's final return to Jerusalem and Ju- 
dea, and with tears pressed home the trespasses 
of the people in the lands of their sojourn, I 
could think of nothing but Ezra mourning be- 
fore the house of God over " the strange mar- 
riages." 

Mortara, I never understood it so before, 
and I came away from the synagogue determined 
that you should never look on me again. But, 
dearest, as God sees things, it cannot be so wrong 
for you to wed a Christian. We both believe in 
Him and trust in the same blessed Messiah — do 
we not ? Beside, how be parted from you now, 
Mortara, and live ? My life is in you, and, like 
the earth, my heart could do without all the 
stars save its one true Polar star, whose loving 
beams my thoughts have learned to go to for 
jewels to deck themselves in, while my soul puts 
them on for bracelets and wears them for smiles. 

Thy letter of to-day is a sweet Sychar of hope, 
and like a devout pilgrim I have encamped by it 
with the new best song of love warm on my lips. 



MORTARA. 51 

Ah ! yes, and would the slow turning moons that 
lie between had come and waned and I were in- 
deed with thee in the land of flowers, where, thou 
sayest, those dark maids wait my coming ; where 
all the breezes are heavy with perfumes, and, 
more than all, thy noble self forever near. 

Oh ! if the picture so entrance, the reality may 
be likened only to thee ; for thyself art bliss, 
thyself art joy. So I trust thee, and so, dearest, 
I believe thee ; while loving thee fills the days 
with gladness, and calling thee mine robs life of 
all save delight. One doubt were death ; but 
oh! no, no, thou wilt be true. Thy chivalrous 
vows hang belted around my heart like rainbows 
upon a summer sea, forever covenanting anew 
the sweet springtimes and the glad harvests of 
thy love. 

But, alas ! how reply to thy chidings, when 
blame, for lack of care to one's self, is so sweet 
from lips that we love ? Pray, dearest, have no 
fears. I rode much when the day was brighter 
to me than now, and Benoni says that I sit a 
horse still like a Cossack. Beside, I keep in 
mind — dost see ? — those ponies and those gal- 
lopings with thee over the plains, shaking the 
dews from the drowsino- flowers and hieing- the 
birds to their matins of the morn. 

Coming for me soon ? Oh, no, no ! What I 
go to do is scarcely more than commenced, and 
were I to play deserter to it now, turning to the 
books they keep, the good angels could do 



52 MORTARA. 

naught but weep tears over the page whereon all 
the foreshadowed should have been writ. Be- 
side, the moons vowed to your dear mother's 
memory make a long line upon the calendar yet, 
and I shall doubtless not only have ample time 
for all that to my hand has been set, but occa- 
sion for not a few lessons in waiting ! 

However, spread wide now those great pro- 
tecting arms of thine, whose shelter a weary an- 
gel might covet ; while, with prayers for thee 
all whispered in love, and kisses for thee melting 
in smiles and dissolving in tears, I come once 
more to chain thy heart around, as I would fain 
bind thy soul to mine forever, with love cords, 
many stranded here, and hawser laid in heaven. 

Helen. 



MORTARA. 53 



New York, January 7, 1850. 

MoRTARA, — Benoni has just forwarded your 
letters by the last steamer, and as there were 
uone among them bearing your revered father's 
seal and handwritinor- we fear much lest the 
places that knew him behold him no more ; and 
as his days have been so very long upon the 
earth, it is surely not impossible. Still, dearest 
Mortara, you are not left without comfort. The 
name of thy noble father is written with those 
whom the Lord has called His own ; and instead 
of mourning any longer here the absence of his 
beautiful first-born, he will be waiting for you 
in a life beyond the grave that beatifies and re- 
stores the loved and the lost. 

But for fear of this new great sorrow to you I 
should be very, very happy this evening, for like 
Ossian I see the stars from out the watery clouds 
and they tell me of thee, dearest, and happiness 
in the long years to come. Your last letter, too, 
is lying spread out here before me like a balmy 
little June all freighted with blossoms and laden 
with love. Through Minnie's eyes I have been 
looking down its roseate lines and whispering 
prayers that the years of thy life be thus all 
linked with sunshine and flowers. 

Mortara, thyself alone art riches evermore, and 



54 MORTAR A. 

thy love " a light at evening time " that covers 
all my night with stars. Wonder not, then, that 
I almost fear to call thee mine, lest having so 
much I make the angels jealous and they come 
for thee, too. 

Alas ! Heaven's loudest complaint to mortals 
is ever for lack of love. Even He who sitteth 
upon the Throne of thrones knoweth what it is 
to stretch out His arms in the utter desertion of 
no one to love Him, no one to seek Him, and no 
one to fear Him, — " no, not one." Then as we 
may best show our love to Him by loving one 
another, is it not well, dearest, that thou shouldst 
begin by loving me just ever so little ? Ah ! 
yes, and like the ambitious vine do thou reach 
out all thy tendril thoughts to what is nearest, 
the while aspiring to the oak or the pine of a 
loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that was 
accounted unto him for righteousness. 

I shall not complain if all my angels go to keep 
you company so long as they help you to give 
such encouraging accounts of yourself as this : — 

" I am reading the New Testament, love, for 
your sake, and I say my prayers sometimes in 
the little book that you gave me." 

Oh! continue to do so, mine own beautiful 
and best, and let my prayers be answered : that 
you come at last to read them both for your own 
sake. I often wonder how one who has read 
Moses and the Prophets from his youth up, over- 
looked Jerusalem from holy Olivet and bleeding 



MORTAR A. 55 

Calvary, lingered in Gethsemane and knelt and 
wept amid the ruins of the Temple^ can still 
doubt, save it be indeed as Paul says of his 
countrymen : — 

" God hath given them the spirit of slumber." 

You are thinking that quotation too pertinent, 
coming from me, and it does seem a little brusque 
and incongruous, surely ; but you know my 
thoughts come always linked hands rustling in 
upon me, the bidden and the unbidden together ; 
and if sometimes, as now, one perchance strayeth 
to thy side garmented unfitly, do thou let the 
trembling little offender find pity in thy sight 
and come away wrapped close in the fault-cover- 
insr o-arb of thine own beautiful foroiveness ! 

Dearest, noblest Mortara, the Eunomian hours 
of this long winter evening seem just made for 
visiting with you in, and mine hostess soul has 
been working sweet miracles on the few little 
love words in your letter until they spread out 
into a feast that the unloved world might come 
in and sit down to. This choice bit of a mor- 
ceau, though, my heart is selfish enough to sit 
up and feed on all by itself, marveling the while 
at the sweet healing it hath for wounded pride 
and blighted hope : — 

" If your dependence, as you term it, be not 
a new grace, then your angels must surely have 
lent you their charms wherewith to conceal it." 

How beautiful of you to say that, Mortara ; 
and I wonder, too, if angel or mortal ever enter- 



66 MORTAR A. 

tained thought or smile of love more loftily un- 
selfish than this : — 

" The landscape of your life has indeed been 
darkened over with shadows ; but you should be 
content since Heaven, like a skillful artist, has 
made yourself not only sunny enough to dispel 
them from your own heart, but to banish them 
from the hearts of your friends also. Beside, I 
have often looked on my resolute lolantha, and 
wondered if she ever could have been half as en- 
chanting to me without her privation." 

Oh, strange fatality ! that all the stars in my 
sky should have been darkened o'er that the 
heaven-lighted aurora-borealis of thy love might 
shine the brighter upon my life, and I be crowned 
with the glory of calling thee mine. But the 
fates are not wont to give so much more largely 
than they take ; and oh ! thou more bright than 
the stars and more dear than the light, tell me, 
has the world grown Eden again and do the 
skies rain gladness that my poor heart may drink 
it as from rivers that never run dry ? Alas ! 
when love hath most, then most it doubts ; and 
Mortara, bend now thy beautiful head and 
tell me once again in whispers that the angels 
might pause a little on their harps to listen for, 
art thou indeed mine and I thine, and I to live 
with thee ever, ever ? I to lean upon thine arm, 
gather joy from thy lips, and follow down all 
the sunset paths of life guarded by thy watchful 
eye and shielded by thy tender hand ? 



MORTAR A. bl 



New York, January 17, 1850. 

MoRTARA, — Those letters must have been 
the bearers of good news instead of unwelcome, 
as I feared, or they had surely reached you ere 
this ; for good journey eth to the good on foot, 
while evil flieth to them. 

So mine own far away begs to know more of 
myself, more how I pass the days, and almost 
complains that my pen should be so chary of the 
progress I am making ; but results are greater 
apart from the steps that lead to them, and while 
men praise success they laugh at effort without 
it. Better then, dearest, you be content to know 
that all the days are full of toil and all my 
thoughts full of dreams of thee. 

The little book is really out, though, and flying 
hither and thither like leaves among the Autumn 
winds, as the papers ere this must have told you. 
Fears for the world's reception of one's first work 
are fearful indeed, while the relief of finding it 
praised and not criticised is after all but another 
name for torture, lest the feat of slaying so 
timid a thing as your one little ewe lamb of a 
book might not have been deemed Herculean 
enough for the majesty of their pens ! How- 
ever, so long as many are pleased, many come to 
congratulate, and the far and near hasten for- 



58 MORTAR A. 

ward their orders, one need not quarrel with 
the wherefore, I ween. 

A group of new faces, too, are smiling over 
their desks this morning in a far-away school. 
A pretty little banking institution — dost see? 
— for absorbing the tiny gold dollars that come 
to me now, just as, you remember, the sweet 
plans that ran through my thoughts in the vis- 
ion bore away the shining little pieces from my 
hands almost faster than I was able to gather 
them. I promised, though, to af&ict you no more 
with the shades of that " gloomy superstition," 
as you call it ; but, Mortara, as well go back and 
convince Belshazzar that the handwriting his 
eyes saw traced upon the wall was but a freak of 
his own imagination, as persuade me that my 
five summers' ago noonday panoramic vision of 
darkness was not a forecast of the stern events 
that have since been and are still to be crowded 
upon the years of my life. Judging by the past, 
too, mine is to be no flowery way, aAd now pass- 
ing out these gates ^ I do perchance enter anew 
the gate of tears. But, Mortara, with love and 
thee shut up in my heart I can brave all and en- 
dure all. 

I must go to Washington, though. What I 
have undertaken can never be accomplished un- 
less I do. Myself and my little love-work re- 
ceived and smiled upon there, the wide, wide 
world will be open before me. 

1 N. Y. B. Institute. 



MORTAR A. 59 

Now your black eyes are frowning again, I 
fear, but alas ! what is to be one has a tendency 
to ; and in spite of all I can do my thoughts will 
come and go faced toward the wanderings of 
that lonely vision or wide-awake, twinkling sec- 
ond of a dream "that was not all a dream ! " 



PART III. 

Washington, D. C, February 8, 1850, 

MoRTARA, — Your letter needed no orange 
blossom or aught else to atone for the slowness 
of its coming, since it leaves me nothing to for- 
give and little to forget save the pain of not 
hearing from you. Indeed, portraying as it does 
both the sorrow you are enduring and the efforts 
you are making for your friends beyond the sea, 
blame should rather be to me, I fear, for having 
borne with so little grace this — my first lack of 
a word from you. 

But alas ! love is ever selfish ; and now, while 
regretting most sincerely David's call to leave 
his Almah and go half a world away, I find 
myself rejoicing that the lot fell not on thee, 
dear, dear Mortara. Oh ! no, no, the thought 
is woe, and with tearful thanks I hide it from 
me. David's noble self-sacrifice, going in Pha- 
nor's place, is one of those holy things out of 
heaven which, like Jacob's ladder, lead mortals 
so near to that blissful abode that we may well 
charge him to have care for himself lest those 
who mourn his absence behold him no more. 
Please press my love in a kiss upon sweet Al- 
mah's lips and say to her that while Helen lives 
she shall never lack a sister. 



62 MORTARA. 

The little book goes on turning to gold as 
if all the good genii had touched it ; the 
papers continue to praise, and my heart would 
know only joy this morning, Mortara, but for 
the tears I know sorrow and loneliness are cir- 
cling around yours. Even if you had not named 
the great bereavement of your noble father's 
sudden death, I should have felt it in every line 
of your precious letter — so softly you take up 
the words and so tenderly you lay them down, 
like one folding away hopes to be fostered no 
more and pressing kisses upon mute lips that may 
part to whisper blessing and love in return no 
more, nevermore ! Oh ! mine own beautiful and 
best, how near it makes heaven seem to hear 
you say : " He cannot come to me, but I shall 
go to him," — as though with your own blessed 
hand you had turned back the clouds and marked 
the shining way leading up even to the New Je- 
rusalem with its golden streets and walls of sap- 
phire. 

Mortara, you must not despair. " God is 
great, God is good," and for the sake of His cov- 
enant with your princely fathers, Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob, whose blood purples in your 
veins down through thousands of years. He will 
never leave nor forsake you ; and more than all, 
One whom you have not yet learned to love has 
whispered to every bereaved heart : " Come unto 
me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest." Even as He stood and 



MORTARA. 63 

wept over Jerusalem, so now He waits to cover 
you with His blessing, fill your heart with His 
love, and banish every care from your thoughts. 

Oh ! that I could light just one new joy for 
you, or scatter flowers for just so much as one 
footprint ! Ah ! that one footprint, so it were 
faced toward me, how I would fly now to gather 
it up as though an angel had left it in the world, 
and fold it to my lonely heart for a thing more 
dear and more precious than the crown of a 
king — as I have over and over again these 
sweet assurances that whatever comes or what- 
ever betides there is always left to me the sure 
refuge of thine own loving arms. Blessed words, 
precious words ! And oh ! thou noblest and 
best, repeat them, till like lights upon a dark 
shore they guide me back to thee again. Ah ! 
yes, dearest, dry thy tears and stay thy sighing, 
if only the while to write me once again with 
thine unceasing love winding and cascading 
adown the lines. 

But forgive me, Mortara, I have asked of thee 
a song with the streams of Babylon at thy feet, 
and thy dear far-off home dark with mourning. 
Oh ! send me tears, then, that I may weep with 
thee and for thee till the love angel touch again 
thy heart. Meantime, trusting all to thine un- 
changing word, I return thy " one tearful kiss " 
with a thousand little sunny isles of them in a 
sea of love, and barks on all its waves heavy 
laden with blessing. Helen. 



64 MORTARA. 



Washington, D. C, March 20, 1850. 

MoRTARA, — Hours are long on the dial of a 
waiting heart to which love turns wicked sprite, 
lengthening the moments even into cycles of en- 
durance. Pray, is it because so many are show- 
ering blessings that thy dear hand must be stayed 
from writing me ? 

I leave in the morning for Charleston, the city 
of palmettoes and the home of love and flowers. 
Washington, dear, noble Washington, has marked 
the way and set it along with lights and friends. 
But oh ! how I long to leave all and fly to thee, 
thou ever first remembered and latest in my 
thoughts. 

Dearest, noblest Mortara, oh ! fold me in thine 
arms and let me but one moment hide from the 
world that I so constantly dread. Alas ! is there 
no refuge ? Must I go, must I ? I do wrong 
though, to be thinking of myself when you have 
perhaps to-day parted from your dear, noble 
brother forever, and his poor sweet Almah weep- 
ing tears with no hand but yours to dry them 
away. I can feel the loneliness that weighs 
down her desolate heart, and would I could com- 
fort her. But alas ! this world was made to 
break hearts in, while love was sent from heaven 
to heal them. The precious balm, though, is so 



MORTAR A. 65 

scarce that many must die for want of it. 
Woman's heart at least is seldom cordialed, save 
with her own tears, and they as often drown as 
cure. 

Mortara, thy love alone should brighten the 
world, though banished the sun. Why, then, is 
my heart dark and lonely ? Oh ! thou, my star, 
art too distant. Thy letters, though, abound in 
beautiful praise, and this in thy last was precious 
indeed : — 

" I am proud of my noble Helen." Ah ! had 
these words been sent to me oracled from the 
lips of Fame herself I were less pleased and less 
proud, and love has so engraven them upon my 
heart's memory that they will brighten there 
with the last wave of time. You are my world 
and I have earned your applause. Enough ! and 
yet I ask for more — courage to persevere. I 
dread all, everything. I am afraid even of my 
own thoughts, and every footfall makes my 
heart start like a sleeping criminal. Mortara, 
Mortara, will I hear from you in Charleston? 
Though all the city come out to meet me and 
the angels themselves walk linked hands, a let- 
ter from you there will be to my soul a bubbling 
fountain in a desert, a voice in the wilderness, or 
a white hand from out the clouds. If no more 
love to send, then tell me, dearest, whither you 
go and what you do. Tell me if Almah is in- 
consolable, and let me share as much as possible 
what pains and what pleases you. 



66 MORTAR A. 

These flowers bring you my tears and my 
kisses. I received them last night at the good 
President's levee, who has this evening sent me 
a letter that bends a golden canopy over all the 
dark and lonely way. 

Once again, fare thee well, mine own dear, true 
Mortara. I shall love thee when the stars are 
old, and come storm and cloud, or come what 
may, next to our Heavenly Father, my trust is 
in thee. My heart is wedded forever to thine, 
and parted from thee I but love thee more and 
pray for thee oftener. 

One fond embrace from thy dear arm, while I 
steal a kiss from thy dear lips, a smile from thy 
black eyes, and a curl from thy jetty locks. 

Ah ! why this shadow upon my heart and this 
vague consciousness of every day drifting far- 
ther and farther away from you ! But alas ! I 
cannot drive it away, nor stop nor turn back. 
No, no. I must go, I must, I must ! 



PART IV. 

New York, May 9, 1850, 

MoRTARA, — It is the deep night-time, — the 
hour I know not ; but oh ! I cannot sleep when 
I remember that to-morrow, oh ! to-morrow, I 
speak with you and go out from your heart to re- 
turn no more, nevermore ! Already my soul has 
erucibled its woe beyond the bitterness of tears, 
and henceforth life is all endurance, — cold, 
hopeless, loveless endurance. Oh ! to-morrow, 
to - morrow ! Shall I never meet you again ? 
Never hear your voice ? Will you never, never, 
never come to call me yours again ? 

These nig-ht chills do not so freeze me as the 
loneliness that now, like a cold mist, is falling 
on my head and sinking down into my heart. 

Seven moons ago I gave you the love of my 
soul for the wealth of yours ; and now when I 
cancel your vows and tear myself from you, as 
well for your good as my own, my heart claims 
you by a price a thousand times greater and a 
thousand, thousand times paid. 

Mortara, forgive me ; but vows are on my lips 
to the dead by which I should never, never have 
promised to be your wife, — vows which nothing 
but love for you could ever have made me for- 
get. Not fear of the world, nor poverty, nor 



68 MORTARA. 

pain, nor death ; but oh ! to live with you, to be 
yours, I would almost have forgotten heaven 
itself. But to-night, in this desolate hour, I 
would wring from my soul the last vestige of its 
idolatry. I know my duty. I see what lies be- 
fore me, — a sacrifice of not only the two little 
years that I begged of you, but many years, a 
lifetime, perhaps ; and God ! help me that I 
fail not, and keep me that I turn not back ! 

Dearest, noblest Mortara, my love for you be- 
gan in gratitude ; it has grown in esteem, and 
though I part from you now, oh ! blame me not, 
nor darken these pure feelings with words of 
wrong ; but like gentle rivulets let them run on, 
that when the day is weary and the water in the 
bottle is spent, their murmuring memories may 
be to my fainting heart like the voices of the 
angels whispering of hope. No, no, Mortara, 
blame me not. It is no selfishness that moves 
me to write you as I do. I leave happiness and 
thee but for toil and danger ; for long years of 
loneliness, and weariness, and darkness every- 
where. I bless you for all your love, I bless you 
for all your devotion ; and could I weigh happi- 
ness from my life I would gladly crowd yours 
with length of years and bliss such as mortals 
never know. 

I have no tears, and beyond the morrow no 
hope. When you have read this you will write 
me ; but oh ! say not that you love me, lest I 
leave all and fly to you ; and oh ! say not that 



MORTARA. 69 

you hate me lest it drive me mad. But, Mor- 
tara, remember me and pity me. Leaving you, 
I leave all tlie world. You will believe that I 
love you less and my people more, but oh ! no, 
no. My duty is to them ; and since I may not 
live to love you, God be praised that I have a 
smiling little troop of loved ones, to live for! 
Striving to weed the garden of their young lives 
will be the surest way of planting flowers in the 
desert of my own. So even they and you and 
everything go to make up the finger of Provi- 
dence that forever points me away, away to the 
lonely wanderings of that fated vision which, 
ere you read this, my feet will have entered upon 
nevermore to tarry, nevermore to turn back, and 
nevermore to weary, I hope, until the end is 
reached and the morning breaks again upon 
these veiled eyes of mine. 

Forgive me, then, Mortara, and most of all 
forgive me if I have wronged you. But our 
spirits divine some things and come to read them 
all the plainer ere they have reached the form 
and substance of words ; and I am persuaded 
that either some untoward event growing out of 
your noble father's death, or the same great en- 
terprise that called your brother far, far away, 
calls also you and you would be free. I know 
it, I feel it ; and saying these words to you, Mor- 
tara, I do but give utterance to what has been 
all along distancing the night of my life from 
the morning of yours. Is it not so? Oh, go 



70 MORTARA. 

then ; and may the God of your fathers send His 
whitest angels to guard and keep you ! And if 
in far-off years we meet again, I shall love to 
give you my hand over the deep grave of the 
past and feel that, as now, you do at least re- 
spect me. 

Farewell, Mortara. What I feel is not woe, 
it is not madness, it is not grief ; words may 
never, never speak it. Oh ! was desolation ever 
so drear ? Was loneliness ever so lonely ? And 
oh ! was duty ever so severe ? 

Alas ! the world is indeed dark before me, 
while thou, my soul's light, goest from me. 
And oh ! how make you believe, dearest Mor- 
tara, that I thus lo'dl to part hands and stay 
from you only to be the more worthy of loving 
you and the surer of finding you again? How 
make you know that but for the certainty of 
wrong to you, wrong to myself, and wrong to all 
linked hands with us both, naught this side of 
heaven could move one thought of mine to the 
step I am taking so long as you had a smile for 
me left? 

But oh ! thus it was ever death for me to love, 
and T linger now as at the gate of Paradise with 
only this one more word to thee trembling on 
my lips, — farewell, Mortara, forever and forever 
fare thee well. Helen. 



PART V. 

Bangor, Me., June 27, 1852. 

MoRTARA, — Like the rivers, forever running 
yet never passed, like the winds, forever going 
yet never gone, so is my love for thee ; and now, 
after two long weary years, your welcome letter 
is as if the angrels had lifted the leaden hand of 
despair and suddenly turned a thousand rivulets 
of joy into this desert heart of mine. Your lips 
have but whispered my name, and lands and 
seas are widening; between us no more. You 
reach out your hand to enfold mine in its clasp, 
— I hear your voice, and all my clouds are 
beaming with light ; my stars shine again in the 
heaven of your smile, and my morning new 
dawns in the paradise of your love. 

Oh ! nothing less than a leaf from the book 
of life could I prize so much as this, your 
precious letter. I could live upon its words a 
thousand years, and feast hope forever upon its 
dreams of love, — love all high and holy, bind- 
ing souls as Avith the " sweet influence of the 
Pleiades " that no power may sever them ; love 
that came from the skies and in the lute of thy 
voice awoke my heart to its Elysian advent of 
song and ambrosial joys. But alas ! dearest 
Mortara, only in the spirit world mayest thou 



72 MORTARA. 

ever be mine and I thine. There, beneath those 
soft skies, I may at least mark whither thy wings 
take their flight and watch thy return, as now 
I do miss thee everywhere and wait for thee and 
pray for thee. But, though parted from you in 
this world, I would still forever wear the jew- 
eled mantle of thy love, and have all thy soul's 
life to bless mine with. Oh ! a thousand, thou- 
sand times a day I envy the soul part of me that 
puts on wings and flies to you, not to your em- 
brace, but to look on you from afar, envying the 
while even the shadow that walks by your side 
and the voices of the winds because they min- 
gle with yours. Ah ! yes, but for the fear of 
Heaven, long, long ago, a thousand, thousand 
times ago, I had left all and followed you into 
those golden climes. But, Mortara, astray from 
duty I were farther from you there than here, 
where, like the compass upon the sea, my heart 
beats on the truer the farther from the haven, 
and the firmer for the cloud and the storm. 

It is in the soul that we love. It is my spirit 
that weeps and is lonely without you ; and from 
my deep heart I bless you for these dear, dear 
words of to-day, showing me how manifold 
richer are they who find again than they who 
have never lost. Oh ! this precious letter ! I 
spread it out before me, and it is a vale more 
sunny and more beautiful than the longing eye 
of Israel's prophet saw. I wind its lines around 
my heart and they are rainbows too golden to 



MORTARA. 73 

fade away. I press it to my lips ; I wear it over 
my heart ; I set it up in my thoughts for a tem- 
ple light that goeth not out. This dear letter, 
— Heaven bless it, Heaven be praised for it ! 
although forced to read in it o'er and o'er of 
Mortara saved by letting Mortara go. Was it 
not so, thou wayward knight ? But did I blame 
you then, or do I blame you now ? Oh ! never, 
neyer. My love robes you in all that is high 
and holy, and is so like heaven that it asks no 
return save thy heart ! When asking and ex- 
pecting least, though, one oft most receives, and 
lo ! now from half a world away I am wearing a 
chain again new-forged from your love and new- 
jeweled with your praises of me, — a chain whose 
links even I had thought broken and lost, so 
loosely you wore it away now two summers 
agone. Verily, an artificer like unto the Tubal- 
cain of old must have come to your aid, else each 
loop, rivet, and hook could ne 'er have been re- 
fastened so fair. No, Mortara, a necromancer 
thou art, and by the magic of thine own words : 
" It takes two to break an engagement," the 
beautiful past is evoked, and all the ties that 
bound us twain are binding us still. But oh 1 
thou dearest, noblest, and best, if it does indeed 
take two to break an engagement, then it must 
surely take two to keep one ; and henceforth, 
while I send you in the silvery horn of each 
waning moon my prayers, my love, and my tears, 
I pray you to remember that absence and years 



74 MORTAR A. 

are cold things to wrap and lay away the heart 
in. Ah ! yes, and how precious and how beau- 
tiful of you to say : — 

'" Let silence no longer bar the tomb to our 
separation, and, please God, some day I shall re- 
turn." 

Oh ! how surely Heaven hears us when we 
pray ; and here, even here, my heart has builded 
an altar and lighted thereon the fires of a 
brighter faith in the beautiful beyond. 

In some far time, Mortara, far back in a life 
that we have lived before, our spirits must have 
met and bowed and sipped together at the same 
spirit wells of thought and feeling; else why, 
oh ! why, our strange dreamlike recognition here ? 
I could not see you, yet your presence lighted 
all my soul as with the sweet aurora of remem- 
bered smiles ; while your voice, your words even, 
broke upon my ear like the echoes of some far- 
lost, love-betraying Shibboleth ; until, listening 
entranced, I could almost have named you by 
a name borne to my lips on a tide of reawak- 
ened memory. Then, half around that little 
lake, — dost remember ? — you paused, and ex- 
claimed : — 

" Why, it seems I have been waiting and look- 
ing for some one like you all my life, and I am 
half vexed now with those angels you speak of 
for not bringing you to me sooner." The next 
morning, too, by the Cocoa Spring, stooping to 
fill that tiny cup for me, you said : — 



MORTAR A. 75 

" Were this bubbling fountain in my own 
country I should fancy my parents must have en- 
camped by it while on some pilgrimage in my 
infancy, I am always so haunted here with some- 
thing like forgotten voices and faded memories;" 
when only the evening before I had said to one 
of the ladies : — 

" I must have visited this spot some time in 
the dreamland, the gurgling of the waters and 
all about it comes back to me so strangely." 
Thus, like happy children, we grew to be ac- 
quainted by forgetting that we were strangers, 
or rather by discovering, as it seemed, that even 
the shadowy memories and fancies of our souls 
had some time or other fallen together ; and as 
we went on, reliving to each other our separate 
lives, what wonder that we found such new in- 
terest in each event now that, like a long divided 
page, the two halves of our one life were joined 
again ! All too soon, though, the great clock of 
Fate struck another, sadder hour, and knelled 
out our paths henceon in opposite directions. 
A sea of time rolled between, an icy sea mayhap, 
whose dark waves must needs be crossed and re- 
crossed many times. But if the destinies of our 
souls be indeed one, we shall ere long surely 
meet again. At all events, dearest Mortara, let 
us be patient and never weary well doing, that 
although parted in this life we may finally come 
to rest together in the bosom of our Heavenly 
Father whose love melteth his sorest bereave- 



T6 MORTARA. 

ments into blessing. Oh, no, no ! thou dearest, 
noblest, and best, weary not, and oh, — may I ask 
it ? — forget me not. And when nothing brighter 
in the world comforts you, remember that far, 
far away one loves you a thousand, thousand 
times more than her own life, and would gladly 
give all for you and leave all for you save God 
and heaven, — and heaven were scarcely heaven 
save you were in it. 

I love you, Mortara. In my thoughts I love 
you, in my prayers I love you, and in my grief 
and in my tears I remember you. Oh ! while 
one spark of my soul remains, that one spark 
will be the brighter for its memory of you; 
while the joy I have in your prosperity is equaled 
only by the love-lighted castles I build upon the 
hope of your return. Helen. 



MORTAR A. 77 



New York, November 27, 1852. 

MoRTARA, — As the ocean in the distance is 
joined to the sky, so this hour, half a world away, 
my spirit is blending its light and its love with 
thine ; and the angels are listening while I as- 
sure thee, dearest, that the throbbings of the sea 
are not more true to the earth, whose bosom she 
sleeps upon, than is my soul to thee. 

Oh ! come forth and look into the stars to- 
night, and behold my smile for thee. Listen to 
the low-breathing waters, and they will tell thee 
of me, — how I wait for thee, how I watch for 
thee, and how I think of thee, and how I pray 
for thee ever, ever ! 

Mortara, I see again, oh ! I see again. The 
world is growing glad and new ; but this same 
bright world, Mortara, I would give to gaze one 
moment on you. The sun, the moon, the rivers, 
and the green fields and the blue sky are break- 
ing through the mists. Joy has returned, hope 
has returned, but oh ! you come not, you come 
not ; and though I watch for you until the day 
hangs weary on the world, and though I sleep 
and dream of you, still you come not, you come 
not ! Oh ! why, why, with all other bright things, 
may you not come to smile on me now ? The 
angels, with love-dews fresh on their dappling 



78 MORTARA. 

wings, alone know how my eyes look for thee 
everywhere, — in every cloud, in every shadow, 
and in every form that comes and goes ; and 
how I watch for thy smile in the twinkling stars, 
in the soft moon, and everything that has light 
and love in it. 

Oh ! the soul is not a thing to be bridled. 
We cannot rein our thoughts whither we would ; 
and mine, alas ! are lingering ever with you. 
My heart throbs at the very word letter, and 
every footfall but echoes back the memory of 
yours ; and wander where I will, as in a happy 
dream, I am forever with you, — your smiles still 
warm on my heart and your whispers still dear 
on my lips. Alas ! no, what one is one cannot 
help. We cannot tear hence our feelings, and 
sink them root and branch into the sea of for- 
getfulness, nor strangle the hopes nor choke 
away the desires of our souls ; and while this 
light lasts, dear, dear Mortara, how I do long, 
long to see you ! See you ? Oh ! that is too 
much to hope for and too much to pray for. 
Indeed, the haunting convictions, shaped out of 
that long ago vision, make me almost know that 
it may not, cannot be. Alas ! no. Fortune sel- 
dom gives so largely but to take again, and like 
the rainbow upon the watery clouds I fear her 
smile on me brightens but to fade away ; and I 
must learn to look for the joy of seeing you, or 
anything beyond this little sunny opening in the 
wilderness, as I have learned to look for all the 



MORTAR A. 79 

joys hope once painted so brightly along my 
life's horizon. 

Opposite points, though, long pursued, must 
finally meet ; so some day our paths, like broken 
circles, may join again. And till then, dearest 
Mortara, fare thee well, while with all the re- 
newed promises of thy last dear letter wrapped 
warm in my heart, blessings be on thee like the 
rains, love like the dews, and prayers for thee 
all heavenward like the breath and the odor of 
the flowers ! Helen. 



BO MORTARA. 



New Orleans, January 17, 1853. 

MoRTARA, — Only from the far away land of 
the blest could one receive tidings more sweet 
and more beautiful than this, thy letter, brings. 
Oh! joy beyond words. You coming? Mortara 
coming ? The thought suffocates ; my breath 
stops ; I think where to hide me. " I would not 
see you for the world, and yet for the world I 
would not miss seeing you ! " 

My thoughts swell, my heart beats, fancy flies, 
and I tremble as if the grave yawned, when I 
should be calm in the fullness of joy. 

Three years, so long and weary, seem now but 
a bridge, a golden span, linking the sunny past 
to the hoping, fearing present ; but a " Bridge 
of Sighs " mayhap, for oh ! what lies beyond ? 
Love cometh only from above, and alas ! I have 
no Franklin power by which to steal it down 
upon you, Mortara, as now I would fain woo a 
smile from those black eyes of thine. Ah ! no, 
for although lacking little of their lost lustre, 
these eyes of mine are still hardly the eyes, I 
ween, for looking love to eyes again. Once 
more bathed in the enkindling flashes of yours, 
though, they will be at least clairvoyant enough 
to miss the palest ray that has ever beamed in a 
smile of thine. I shall know, too, if so much as 



MORTARA. 81 

one thought in all your heart be faced backward, 
or if one word of your love be found to weigh in 
its weio-hing even the weight of a shadow less. 

Richer and prouder and haughtier than before ! 
Pulseless hands will greet you, false lips salute 
you, and falser hearts seek you. But oh ! would, 
dearest, I had some Jupiter chariot and horses 
with hoofs of fire to speed thy coming ; stars to 
guide thee, and legions to bring thee ! Morn- 
ino-, open wide thy portals ! Let the world be 
bright and new ! Mortara comes, Mortara comes ! 
All life is in that word, all hope is in it and all 
fear. My Judea regained, my Israel returning ? 
Those arms still my "belts of gold," and thy 
heart still a refuge from the world ? Thy love 
a lio-ht over its wastes, and, more than all, thy 
noble self forever near ? Oh ! for a thousand 
hearts to rejoice, and ten thousand lips to speak 
while mine eyes weep tears that drown words. 

But, dear, noble Mortara, call not all the hap- 
piness your great heart plans for me a return for 
the one poor little service once in my power to 
render you. No, no, say not so ! A grain of 
sand weighed from your love were more to my 
heart than the world from your obligation. 
Love is blessed only with love; and gifts, for- 
tune, benefits, all were nothing save thine own 
ever-abiding love were with it. While every 
word of your precious letter is heavy with prom- 
ise, this one line at its close makes the gold and 
the purple of it all : — 
6 



82 MORTAR A. 

" Dearest Helen, all that I ever was to you I 
am, and all that I am, with God's help, I ever 
shall be." Yesterday I was poor in spirit, poor 
in heart, poor in all things ; but to-day this one 
line makes my heart evermore, 

" A palace rich and purple chambered, 

And the lord himself at home." 

Ah ! yes, dearest, dearest Mortara, I know 
now that thou art too great and too noble ever, 
ever to change ; and ere long, if not in this 
world, far, far up in the flowery fields of God's 
love, radiant in the light of heaven, I shall walk 
linked hands with thee, and love thee forever, 
forever ! 

star of my soul, light of my thoughts, all 
the angels attend thee ; and our Heavenly Father 
grant that the slow turning moons, yet to come 
and wane, be crowded only with all holy thanks, 
and end only in love's sweet rejoicings^ 

Helen. 



PART VI. 

Louisville, Kentucky, June 1, 1853. 

MoRTARA, — I received your dear sad letter 
in tlie far South, and all the way up the river I 
have worn it on my heart, now weeping and now 
rejoicing over its contents : weeping that like 
the Roman in his prophecy you are sitting alone 
in that far-off land amidst the smouldering ruins 
of your fortunes, your hopes, and your toils ; but 
rejoicing that like the prophet among the deso- 
lations of Jerusalem, you have the heart to feel 
that the hand of your God is good upon you, 
and the courage still "to rise up and build." 
dearest, dearest, noblest Mortara, pray do so, and 
never, never despair ! The good angels will be 
thy watch day and night, while my heart will be 
making prayers unto our God for thee, even from 
the rising of the morning till the stars appear. 

Oh, no, no ! be not disheartened, but go 
strengthen thyself and encamp again over 
against the world like Israel's two little flocks 
of kids, trusting in the Lord who is both God 
of the hills and of the valleys ; and ere many 
years are past, believe me, you will be saying, 
like brave Themistocles in his exile : " I had 
been undone but for my undoing." 

The bitter sweet is after all life's richest sweet, 



84 MORTAR A. 

only so we had the taste or the wisdom to relish 
it, and toiling in a good cause a thousand, thou- 
sand times better for the soul than sipping from 
that vapid cup the world calls happiness. 

Men name endurance the mightiest of the vir- 
tues, but it is far more apportioned to woman's 
lot than to man's. The glory of action is his ; 
and, Mortara, even now despite my tears for 
your losses, I almost envy you the exciting strifes 
of rebuilding your broken fortunes. Oh ! only 
to-day do I see how courageous and noble and 
true you are. As the frosts upon the forest leaves 
bring out their splendors, so adversities do but 
reveal your greatness and your goodness. And 
Mortara, Heaven knows too that you were 
never, never before half so precious and half so 
beloved. With your immense wealth and your 
thousand other nameless advantages, you seemed 
to me almost some far-off blessed Abraham, with 
an impassable gulf between ; but to-day, with 
the ashes of your proud hopes upon your head 
and your heart bowed with disappointment, my 
spirit would fain cross the deserts of the universe 
to rest one hour in the bosom of your sympa- 
thies and your love. 

Calling you mine, though, seems always like 
claiming something possibly in the gift of God 
and possibly not ; and as a proof of your un- 
abated love, how I bless you for the risk that 
snatched from the flames my picture and my let- 
ters ! How I bless you too, brave, noble Mor- 



MORTAR A. 85 

tara, that even amid the gloom and the untold 
ruin around you, you can still forget all to pity 
my disappointment, and rejoice at the new light 
in these poor, poor eyes of mine. But, dearest, 
I know now that it may not, cannot last. Alas ! 
no ; the closing scene of the vision with the 
light and the day is not yet. Five more scenes 
of the long, lonely way still wait to be wandered 
through, and I find it hard indeed to be con- 
soled for the disappointment of these words : 
" God only knows now when I may return." 

Oh ! how like an eternity the long night of 
your absence breaks upon my heart, as if all time 
were too short for its setting sun to rise again. 
Alas ! but for this promise the dove of hope had 
taken wing from my soul to return no more, 
nevermore : 

" Memory of you and the past can only cease 
with death." Thus all that Heaven sends, de- 
parting bequeaths its comforter ; and dearest, 
ever dearest Mortara, repeat these words often, 
often ! Let them be green leaves, assuring me 
again and again that the heart whence they came 
is forever fresh and sunny and beautiful, as erst 
it was. 

So, commending you, dearest, to the love of 
God and the tender mercies of the blessed Mes- 
siah, in all love and all tears, as ever and forever 
I wait for thee and watch for thee and pray for 
thee. Helen. 



PART VII. 

Canaseraga Valley, August 15, 1854. 

MoRTAEA, — thou on whom my soul smiles, 
and around whom love ever lingers ! Thou em- 
balmed, preserved, endeared ; thou all beloved ! 
Thou star remote, yet never gone ; thou always 
near, yet ever distant, would thou wert with me, 
would thou wert with me ! Thy coming were as 
I oft have met thee in the paradise of dreams ; 
thy embrace the reception of the angels, and thy 
whispers and thy kisses the joys that my heart 
knew in the days that are gone, in the days that 
are gone ! 

By its long waiting my spirit has grown meek 
and forbearing; but sometimes this heart of 
mine rebels, and every voice of my soul cries : 
I must hear from Mortara or die. But death 
comes not, and days — long, weary days — clus- 
ter in my memory hke night-blossoms bedewed 
with darkness. 

I am writing you with your portrait smiling 
down upon me here, and ever and anon I fancy 
your bright eyes flashing a look over my page, 
and your eloquent lips moving to words just 
ever so Httle too low for the rapture of mine ear. 
Ah ! I would fain ask of thy shadow even : 
When will ambition be gratified, those high 



88 MORTARA. 

hopes once more builded up, and all that weighs 
down thy great heart swept away ? 

Oh, could I melt down the pleasures of a life- 
time into one draught, I would give it for the 
intoxicating joy of once beholding those black 
eyes of thine, radiant with the fullness of all 
their brilliant desires. 

What ! did I then sigh to see thee a Solo- 
mon with his shining Ophirs to draw from, or a 
Crcesus with his glittering vaults uncounted ? 
Ah ! as well give thee wings to touch the stars, 
and then go sighing evermore for the world's 
lost Alkahest, wherewith to melt and mould thy 
heart anew, summon thy thoughts, and evoke 
thy presence, all radiant and beautiful as thou 
art. No, no ! Even the dream of thy coming 
is a thing to break joy upon, and a thousand, 
thousand times better than mourning thy loss 
amid the tombs of thy promises gone to decay. 
Would, though, such were the pity in heaven 
for beings out of it that, though destined never- 
more to set my heart around with thy smile, I 
might at least die for thee ; and, dying, seize the 
voices of the winds evermore to hymn thy name 
with the swelling harmonies of the skies, teach 
it to the breezes o'er the main, and whisper it 
with the low breathing of the flowers ! 

Mortara, every moon, as I promised, I write 
you ; but alas ! no moon, however bright, brings 
me any more aught in return. Either some un- 
toward fate deprives me of your letters, or in 



MORTAR A. 89 

your renewed strifes for fortune you make your- 
self forget one who, wearing thy name forever 
on her lips, wears the years away wreathing it 
o'er and o'er with prayers for thee, all luminous 
with love and dewy with tears. 

Oh ! the assembled universe in the love I bear 
it could not balance one throb my heart feels for 
thee ; and had I but one new whisper from thy 
love, Mortara, the radiant night-heaven with all 
its skies and stars could not buy it. Ah ! no ; 
dark and lonely as the world is, even to know 
that you live with so much as a prayer for me 
shut up in your thoughts were a thousand, thou- 
sand times more to my joy than a crown set with 
stars plucked from the belts of Orion, while one 
other fond word of thine were forevermore the 
sweet Selah to my heart's last dream of love. 

Alas ! language is too poor. It doth but 
symbol the heart's deep yearnings, and words 
are weights to my love's white-winged thoughts 
of thee. 

But, Mortara, fare thee well ! Ere long thou 
wilt come again, and I shall scream as though 
existence were spent in that one breath, and my 
heart will sink with the weight of its very joy. 

Helen. 



90 MORTAR A. 



Canaseraga Valley, September 17, 1854, 

MoRTARA, — This is one of those quandary 
days when one hardly knows what to do with 
one's self. Indeed, all nature seems in a quan- 
dary. Glad summer has left us, and this is the 
coming in of autumn. The sky looks wonder- 
ing whether to wear her white, her blue, or her 
smoky veil. The leaves on the trees seem in 
doubt whether to turn red or yellow or stay 
green, and the birds appear to be postponing 
from day to day some long half-desired and half- 
dreaded journey. Just so my heart coaxes me : 
Do not go to-day, to-morrow ; but oh ! to-mor- 
row I must go. 

The fires that kindle my thoughts and the 
tides that flow in my veins all fountain here ; 
but had this valley home no other endearment, 
so long as thy shadow hangs upon its walls it is 
a Mecca temple, where to journey to and pray 
and weep. 

Your letter, care of Benoni, was lost ; and, 
believe me, had I barks on all the seas and 
they were wrecked, I had regretted them less 
than that dear letter of thine, with all its pre- 
cious freightage gone down forever. Love mag- 
nifieth all things, but mostly that which it hath 
lost. Thy letter here, it were perchance cold 



MORTAR A. 91 

and accusing, but lost 't is a chart of thy love's 
promised Eden, with thy tears like dews on all 
the flowers, and thy sighs like lonely winds, 
moaning ever, ever. Ah ! fancy, thou genii to 
love, how much I owe thee ! 

Pray, Mortara, how much gold must you have 
to cancel those " debts of honor," as you call 
them ? How high must the pile be, and at what 
rate does it grow ? Oh ! tell me for an estimate 
whereon to build hope, the while I go on 
wandering, wandering, toiling as ever with thy 
name last on my lips, thine image latest in my 
thoughts, and fond memories of thee forever 
circling around my heart. 

Oh ! this world is such a chaos of contradic- 
tions. We do not reach blessings, but forever 
pendulum betwixt them, always going to possess, 
but never possessing. I left thee for the world, 
but leaving thee I left the world, — left thee 
alas ! at the fated call of the vision ; hence for- 
ever wandering, wandering, just as now I press 
hands and part with all who bless and smile on 
me here, thus garlanding the tomb thine absence 
forever makes in my soul. 

So, waiting the dawn of the morrow, I send 
thee once again all holy greeting, with a never 
failing hin of love and a golden ej^hali of bless- 
ing. Helen. 



PART VIII. 

Montreal, C. E., December 1, 1854. 

MoRTARA, — My spirit has gone back into 
itself, and my heart has barred its every portal. 
My lips are sealed. I have no words, and mine 
eyes swim in unshed tears. Oh ! this is the ex- 
cess of joy, the grief of pleasure, the muteness 
of inexpressible delight. Pray, Mortara, is it a 
dream ? Let me creep to your feet, let me touch 
your hands, and oh ! tell me if this side of 
heaven I do indeed greet you again with praise 
and love even on your lips ! 

You say : " When your angels bring me 
back." Ah ! me, I would stay from heaven 
many long weary years, for the light and glad- 
ness and joy and honor of that one Purim day. 
But alas ! my cmgels are not the mighty but 
the gentle ones, and you, dearest, are slow to be 
coaxed. 

" Sorrow is knowledge," and wisdom as surely 
blanches the locks as death pales the cheek. 
What wonder, then, thou dear sage, that thine 
should be frosting gray even so early ? You 
always seemed to me a sort of Mejnour, and 
now with those black curls so silvered o'er you 
must be looking an ancient indeed ! But oh ! 
love is immortal ; love is always young. It is 



94 MORTAR A. 

the soul's one wilderness garment that waxeth 
not old. 

Alas ! what enemy have I among the angels 
or in the world, that so many of thy dear letters 
have been lost, when their contents had been 
such precious crumbs to this Lazarus heart of 
mine? But though lost, I bless you for them 
all, as I rejoice to know that those little pilgrim- 
ages are still kept up in honor of the arrival of 
mine, and offerings for them doubled too when 
written with my own hand. 

The old alchemist, whose mystic vapors 
wrought such magic upon my eyes, has gone 
again to his own land, leaving the day little or 
no brighter to me than when he came ; and 
henceon I do but wait the return of my pale 
Polar star, whose sweet light faded from my 
sky so long, long ago, oh ! so long, long ago. 

Mortara, I did indeed turn back when the 
fates began to frown upon your way. My heart, 
though, was never wronged more than by these 
words at the close of your letter : " If you loved 
me as you loved another " — 

Madame De Stael said truly : " Happy are 
they who meet in early life the one they should 
love always." She might have added, though : 

But oftener, far oftener, the history of 
woman's heart is the history of the vine, which 
first reaches out its tendrils perchance to the 
stalk ; that outgrown, it descends to the ground 
and creeps timidly to the pole or the blossoming 



MORTAR A. 95 

cherry ; thence to the fence and thence to the 
elm or the oak, around which it climbs and 
clings every day closer and closer, until all its 
strength lies in that one grasp. Perhaps it 
questions and wonders while it climbs and clings : 
" Is this eternal ? " and then there comes out, 
from the deep heart of the oak, a voice : — 

" Forever, forever ! " Years roll on. The 
oak is gray and old, but the vine with fresh life 
covers it over, while with unseen and ever multi- 
plying ties it clings closer and closer. The tree 
dies, the winds fell it to the ground ; and where 
now the vine ? Its life was in that one tree, and 
though bruised and broken it still twines and 
clings, nor once unclasps its circling arms. 

Oh ! so, dearest, ever dearest Mortara, through 
all time my soul must cling to you. I would 
unwind the cords that bind me, but alas ! I 
cannot. Like the stars in their blue homes my 
spirit will be watching you, while in the dust of 
its decayed hopes my heart will be ever writing 
thy name anew. Oh ! pity me then, dearest, 
noblest Mortara, while now I look on the dear 
hand once more so generously held out to me 
and weep alas ! that it may not, cannot guide 
me back to thee again. At sight of the words : 
" I will cross the waves of one ocean and await 

you at A ," sweet Minnie stopped reading, 

and more gasped than exclaimed : — 

" Now, now ! " — while my heart has scarcely 
had a beat in it since. She has little to bind 



96 MORTARA. 

her here, and would gladly go out with me to 
stand bridesmaid and meet you with "the par- 
son and his scroll," as you say. But oh ! I am 
thinking of the two dear heads, now gray and 
fast growing old, and remember that of the 
drafts that were to pay for the mill, yet more 
are to be sent ; while the house, so light and 
warm and full of cheer, has still always a day of 
due for the rent. For the eight, too, whose rosy 

faces you saw clustered in M , as yet only 

three weddings have had to be made ; three are 
still to leave school, and until the last has turned 
to another for trust and for guidance, your ex- 
ample of devotion to your own should be rebuke 
enough to stay me from leaving them. Beside, 
Mortara, you do not need me. I could do 
nothing for you but love you, and tell you so the 
day through. And is it not better, then, that I 
stay to pluck thorns from their paths rather than 
go for you to scatter flowers in mine ? 

God's ways are not as ours, and I was fleeing 
from His way when I followed one down to the 
grave ; and now the retracing footsteps are in- 
deed slow and weary, the stars even refusing 
their light thereon, as the sun deigns but a 
glimmer of his, while sweet Justice seems to find 
pleasure lengthening out her once slighted work 
over the weary years like a fated web that the 
angels come to unravel by night. 

Alas ! that the little of heaven in us should 
be so divided against itself that we know not 



MORTARA. 97 

what to do. Duty points pleadingly one way, 
while love is weeping great tears to go the other, 
and both are love and both are duty. To stay, 
though, seems more the way of the vision, and 
hence more the way the angels are likely to 
smile on. 

But Mortara, you will accomplish what 
you went away for, and come again sometime, 
will you not ? You must, you must ! And will 
I forget you ? Will I know thy voice again ? 
Were my heart the lost Pleiade, thy lips, thy 
tread even would call it back. You taught me 
to love, and the hills will sooner gather back 
their rivers from the seas than one love-tide from 
my soul ever cease to flow, or one thought of 
mine ever lose its memory of thee. Helen. 
7 



PART IX. 

St. Louis, Mo., April 4, 1855. 
MoRTARA, — Many moons have shimmered 
their cold light upon the world since the date of 
thy last; but now, while all things warm with 
life, may not thy heart also break the frosty fet- 
ters that have so long bound and locked it away? 
The soul has its springtime, its summer, and its 
winter ; but oh ! the winter of thy freezing silence 
has lasted too long. Speak but one word, and 
every thought will put on freshness, every feel- 
ing bud and blossom. Smile, and mine eyes 
were fountains of tears, sparkling in the light 
of happy memories. Say thou wilt ever' come 
ao-ain, and the world were bHssful Eden full of 
singing birds, with skies raining dews of glad- 
ness odorous with love. Ah ! count the years, 
count the days, count the minutes, and call them 
each a century, and thou wilt have but a poor 
estimate of what my heart calls the eternity of 
your absence, and the banishment of this long 

silence. 

Mortara, just the hours of this one gloomy 
evenino-, enlivened by your words and illumined 
by your presence, were more to me than an age 
of millenniums without you. But alas ! thmgs 
too brig-ht consume themselves, and such was 

ft 



100 MORTAR A. 

our last evening together, when, like the stars 
looking into heaven and smiling back upon the 
world, your fond eyes were smiling on me. 

Now imagination like a pitiless genii is having 
it all her own way, smiting my heart with useless 
wails of the-might-have-been. Oh, the-might- 
have-been ! What human soul has not sung 
that dirge ? Verily, the winds come howling it 
by like an invisible band of mourners from the 
grave of all things. Alas ! is anything in this 
life real, or are we indeed shadows, and this 
world altogether a shadowy land, while the 
blackened skies above give us only glimpses of 
a far-off better home, better friends, and better 
love? 

Oh ! I am so weary to-night, oh ! so weary. 
Far back, ever so far back, I crossed the path of 
one whose first word melted over my soul like a 
touch of fate. We were opposite bound, — his 
way was not my way. We parted, but like a 
beautiful avenger he bore away with him my 
soul, and hence, on, on, forever and forever on, 
I wander, wander, seeking, hoping, praying, but 
never, never finding. 

Thou who art set in the throne, that judg- 
est right, be they not chid in heaven who do us 
such wrong ; who pluck out our hearts, leaving 
us just so much of life as serves our feet and 
hands to move, while all else is forever away, 
away, away? Or, to Thine all-seeing eye, do 
they indeed most bless who smite us thus, by 



MORTARA. 101 

rendering us henceon insensible to all lighter 
blows ? thou sweetest bitter, thou dearest 
wretchedness of heart that we name love, with- 
out thee what cahn, what blessedness ! 

Alas ! Mortara, brighter charms than the dia- 
monds in the sands may come to bind thee to 
those balmy skies. Oh, would I were there with 
the pearls of the sea to win me back my " belts 
of gold," and that heart of thine, which our 
Heavenly Father grant heave never with pain 
and throb never with but holy desire ; all heav- 
enly feelings inhabit there, and white-winged 
thoughts hie thence to noble purposes ! 

The soul knoweth nothino" so freezino- as a 
frosty look from eyes once dewy with the tears 
of love ; and better, Mortara, I shut mine eyes 
and die than that thou shouldst return to look 
coldly on me. But with these words for memory 
and hope to break smiles upon, it is folly to 
chide and weakness to doubt : — 

" Know always that I love you, and believe 
always that I write you." 

Ah ! yes, I must believe, I will believe ; and 
what though the days be long — blessings, slow 
coming, purple by the way, and they are richest 
in the end who longest wait. Love, too, oft 
blesses most when most withholding ; and so, 
dearest Mortara, once more bowing and kissing 
the hand that denies, true like those who watch 
in heaven, T wait for thee and pray for thee. 

Helen. 



102 MORTARA. 



Frankfort, Ky., May 16, 1855. 

MoRTARA, — Oh, for new thoughts to write 
thee, — thoughts that fly and words that burn ! 
All things are stale. The world seems old and 
weary. The skies wear a dismal gray, and the 
rains fall heavily. The Mayflowers droop their 
heads, and my thoughts are heavy with the dews 
of sorrow. 

You come no more to sit beside me, Mortara, 
as in the long ago, when hours went gliding by, 
and we believing but moments had flown ; when, 
drawing sweet converse from our own hearts, 
you pictured oft as in the mirror of your love the 
mansion fair wherein our twained shadows were 
to fall. One, I mind me, was in the land of 
palms. It had belonged to the Mortaras of old, 
and gold now would restore it to the far de- 
scendant of their house ; a palace, the softened 
light in whose windows was to ofFend never these 
veiled eyes of mine, and whose Oriental hang- 
ings should make only downy collisions with my 
" snowy brow " moving softly their splendors 
among ; a palace of sunshine amid shades and 
perfumes, with its gates standing always ajar 
waiting, waiting that one halcyon day when wed- 
ded we two would be, — wedded, Mortara and 
me ! The angels had us by the hand, though, 
and now alas ! for all save the dreams of bliss 



MORTAR A. 103 

that we conjured then from a Canaan that only 
our own love-hghted eyes were ever to see — a 
Canaan whose river between but widens and 
deepens ; whose trumpet priests make no blast, 
and whose Joshua to go over and possess it cries 
never but to halt, and whose pillar of cloud alas ! 
beckons never but to stay, stay, stay ! 

So, the summer of life wanes, the autumn 
draws on apace, and then the winter and then 
the grave. But oh ! beyond is that beautiful 
springtime where all are young again, where the 
warm tides of life never fail, and its fresh hues 
never fade. But, Mortara, even there, methinks, 
1 were lonely without thee, and far down by 
those Orient gates I were waiting and thinking 
about thee. 

A little time ago, I wished thee unhappy like 
myself ; but no, no ! I have called the reporting 
angel back, and bade him say in heaven that far, 
far sooner sorrow come to me than the shadow 
of ill to thee. I have prayed for thee, too, all 
prosperity and all joy and peace in love's sweet 
forgiveness, craving for myself, alas ! naught 
save thy heart, that were to me ever a Demidoff 
palace lighted with mine own undying love for 
thee ; and once more mine, I were rich enough 
to give queens charity. 

Now the world is still, and Silence, through 
her weird telephone of the night, is whispering 
to me ; — whispering from far over the land and 
the sea chidings, Mortara, that stir all my soul's 



104 MORTAR A. 

impassioned longings to rise up and face my 
steps toward the sunset and thee. But alas ! 
not till the vows on my lips to the dead are for- 
gotten in heaven, and time has unrolled the last 
scene foreshadowed in the vision, can I ever, 
ever, ever be free. Had the light remained in my 
eyes, though, I might have compromised with the 
angels for the rest, and gone out " to meet you 
half way ; " but wrapped in these clouds I am 
their slave again, fast chained to the mysterious 
old pillar of the vision, which even you should 
be diviner enough by this time to see was but a 
forecast of what the great, thousand-eyed world 
would be to me in the darkness. You should 
see, also, that to the rounded bits of gold it con- 
tains myself is but the " Open Sesame," and the 
little books I carry the magic wand by which 
they are transferred, not to my keeping, but to 
my hand, the while the same ever-waiting de- 
mand spirits them away. So I wander, wander, 
literally picking the shining little circlets from 
the gloomy old presence that everywhere over- 
shadows me with dread, — precisely as it was in 
the vision. Some day, though, in a way and by 
means now impossible to foresee, the gold will 
all suddenly disappear, and quantities of a dark 
green material come in its stead. Of that 
too, despite the rougher ways it will bring, I am 
fated to wander and gather the same as of the 
gold, — wander, toil, and gather, answering ever 
to the. same unsatisfied call, and with the same 



MORTAR A. 105 

indifference to possession. But then, just as 
suddenly and in a way just as unlooked for, the 
dark green material will also disappear, fol- 
lowed ere long by the shining out of the gold 
again in something like tablets or squares ; and 
then the end, with its purple dawn from afar. 

But oh ! from the Mount Nebo of this lonely 
hour how hopeless and endless it all seems, while 
far back over the past I see only the Galeed that 
my heart set up where, ages ago, I pressed hands 
and parted with thee. Have mercy, then, Mor- 
tara ! Be thy noble self again, and let this freez- 
ing silence chide me no longer. Oh ! one word 
of hope and the slow turning hours were but 
new dials to wait and watch for thee in, with 
every thought bearing torches of welcome and 
tiptoe with expectant delight. . . . 

But as Adam and Eve brought Paradise into 
the world, so my heart forever carries love and 
thee in its memory, as my thoughts will be bear- 
ing thy name for a light o'er the way when the 
night-stars of all time have set. Helen. 



PART X. 

New York, January 1, 1856. 

MoRTARA, — Par away in that western Orient, 
where soft skies rain dews upon the golden sands 
and drink back odors from the flowers, your heart 
has become like " the charmed sea," lulling even 
the winds to sleep upon its bosom ; and what a 
sin to roil its sunny bays with rivulets from my 
gloomy feelings ! But another year has counted 
out its moons and seasons to the world, and 
marked its gloomy centuries of waiting upon this 
heart of mine. 

The bells are ringing. The city seems one 
great organ throbbing with harmonies, and all 
are merry, merry; while Time with withered 
hand writes himself older, or perchance, in the 
eternal circle of things, younger. 

Oh ! would there were a New Year to life, a 
new birth to love, a fresh waking to the heart, 
a regeneration to body and soul without the 
pain and the fear of dying. Would that we 
children of Eve, by some second eating, might 
win back that primal youth beneath palms and 
amaranths, surpassing even Milton's picturing! 
Or would there were at least some backward way 
to the end of time, that I might be, as my heart 
is now, ever journeying adown the sunny slopes 



108 MORTAR A. 

of memory, meeting with thee, parting with thee, 
praying for thee, and loving thee ever, ever, ever ! 
Ah ! yes, wandering, how sweet it were to find 
thee thus again, as long, long ago, and be called 
thine, be called dear ; when, turning whichever 
way I would, myself seemed winding praises 
from thy lips that an angel might covet to hear. 

But ill - starred past ! Like the golden 
beams braiding along thy horizon, thy promises 
and thy glories have faded away ; and on this 
glad day, while heaven is prodigal with gifts and 
the world jubilant with mirth, I am alone, alone, 
alone ! 

Mortara, it is weakness to love thee so ; but 
the angels do pity while I myself do chide my- 
self and blush for the heart that I cannot change. 
Oh, send me but one word, and with my grateful 
tears I will dissolve that one word and drink it, 
as did Egypt's queen the pearl worth a king- 
dom ; and it shall be to my heart a life elixir, a 
balm for all ills save the pain and the bliss of 
loving thee. 

Where God wills that we tread His angels are 
swift to beckon the way, and following, I go 
wandering, wandering, a stranger and lonely and 
weary everywhere, with only light enough shut 
up in my heart to miss thee by. 

But, lacking all things, love hath yet itself 
wherewith to bless ; and I pray for thee, Mor- 
tara, Happy New Years, golden sheaves of them, 
banded with silver and knotted with good deeds ! 

Heleist. 



MORTAR A. 109 



Montgomery, Ala., April 25, 1856. 

MoRTARA, — This is your Sabbath, but I feel 
it no sin to give its sacred hours to love and 
thee ; for like David my starving soul would fain 
seize the purple clusters from off the love-altar 
at which it comes to worship. 

Alas ! my heart, like a neglected watch, has 
run down, and stands forever pointing backward 
to that fated hour since when you have come 
no more. Long years roll on, and the seasons 
chano^e as before. The moon comes over the 
hills and wanes and comes again. Stars rise 
and set. Old friends and new ones come and 
pass away. These hands press other hands, and 
these lips whisper greeting and adieu while my 
poor heart's beatings are hushed and I am joy- 
ful no more. But one in heaven hath pity for 
me, albeit less beloved, and to-day like a green 
leaf from the sunny past a long-lamented letter 
of thine comes smiling back to me. In it you 
sent me the engagement ring, and drew such pic- 
tures of happiness that one would think your 
hand had builded temples for Happiness herself 
to dwell in. Oh ! this precious, precious letter ! 
It was thy first will and testament of love ; and 
while I wind anew its sacred lines around my 
heart, and link again its burning words to my 



110 MORTAR A. 

thoughts, the love-angel whispers me : 'T is thy 
last, last ! 

But, Mortara, this is no chimera that we are 
living, no dream. We bear in our hands threads 
of fate, by which our souls are as surely bound 
as the twin stars that walk the skies, wearing 
each the other's smiles and swelling each the 
other's harmonies. The earth may send up clouds 
to hide her from the moon, but she cannot stay 
from the moon her attraction. No more, through 
all time and all distance, can you stay my spirit 
from drawing after you ; and as from half a 
world away our paths have crossed and re- 
crossed, so ere long, if not in this world, in the 
far-off better land of better love we shall surely 
meet again. There I shall league with the 
angels to lend me all charms, and robe me in 
all the graces. Goodness shall be my girdle, 
gemmed with shining deeds ; Love, my crown, 
set with smiles all for thee ; Forgiveness, my 
sceptre, pearly with tears ; and my kingdom, thy 
heart, while thou payest me back love an hun- 
dred-fold. happy queen, happy conqueror ! 

But alas ! while fancy, silvery - winged, can 
thus outstrip distance, defy time, and make her- 
self regal with the impossible, the heart is all 
human ; and to-day, though indeed up among 
the angels where they give harps of gold, mine 
would make little music save it should strike 
some chord like unto my soul's memory of thee. 

But I wrong thee, Mortara, — thou dost not. 



MORTAR A. Ill 

canst not, forget. Thou art too noble and too 
true ; and whatever be the cause of this silence, 
oft, oft when the world is still and the stars 
grow pale with watching, the love-angel comes 
to flit thy thoughts with her white wings until 
thou dost at least dream of me. Oh, then pray 
speak ; oh, speak to me once more, Mortara — 
this silence is death ! My heart is breaking, my 
soul will leave me ! Have mercy, have mercy, 
and write me but one word ! No, no, I should 
hate that one word, and burn it with my very 
hate save it were that you love me and that you 
never forget ! Helen. 



112 MORTARA. 



Charleston, S. C, April 1, 1857. 

MoRTARA, — This is a dreamy day, and far 
over land and sea my thoughts are flying lan- 
guidly to thee. Like unmated birds they carry 
memories of nests robbed and gone. Like ea- 
gles, aged and bald, they poise on their wings 
over places hallowed and old. 

Would I had some new phrase for love, some 
new figure for hope, and new words for despair ! 
Oh ! this is no dream, no fiction, but earnest, 
earnest reality : my heart is forever with you, 
and you are forever gone, gone. How lonely 
and weary, then, is life, how tasteless all its joys, 
and how vacant every scene. But wherefore 
blame thee ? Never, never ! Rather watch on 
and wait till loneliness and waiting wrap my 
heart in the gloomy mould of centuries. My 
spirit faints and my heart is weary ; I bow my 
head and weep, and despise the weakness that I 
cannot help — despise myself, alas ! — but oh ! 
as well teach the forest birds new songs, give 
the winds new strains, and the waves yonder new 
shapes, as woo one thought of mine from its 
memory of thee. I love thee, Mortara, as the 
Polar star loves the world its pale eye forever 
watches ; and sooner the skies fall than I forget 
thee, all-forgetful as thou art. 



MORTARA. 113 

Ah ! whence these weird forebodings to-day, 
and why this heavy cahu upon the world ? No 
whisper on the breeze nor the rustling of a wing, 
as though all the spirits of earth and air stood 
still with some great pity. Tell me, Mortara, 
claimeth another thine arm while I would fain 
wrap myself in it and die ? Oh ! that were wretch- 
edness to all, and woe indeed to one. 

I made thee free, and my heart was buried — . 
buried alive, albeit — when the voice of thy let- 
ters from afar rekindled the fires upon its des- 
olate hearth and re-illumined the lights adown 
the halls of memory by whose flickering rays I 
have been so long; watching- and waitino- for 
thee. And wouldst thou now teach a brighter 
smile to fetter thy lips and turn thy thoughts 
away ? Hark ! Mortara, thy destiny is the 
counterpart of mine, and thy heart, thy soul, will 
turn again albe another pale and droop at thy 
side. 

When by the arts of that old alchemist the 
light shone on my steps again, I flew to the val- 
ley that holds thy shadow, and, pressing it close, 
traced as I had believed in each noble lineament 
the well-remembered face of him who stood 
apart from me with downcast eyes in the closing 
scene of the vision. 

Ah ! that vision, so fleeting and yet so eter- 
nal ! I was a school-girl then, with the world so 
bright around me that only heaven itself could 
have made it brig-hter. But alas ! the to he 



114 MORTARA. 

hews its own way, and ere twice twelve moons 
had come and waned I awoke from a troubled 
sleep but to find the clouds of a relentless fate 
fallen cold and thick around me. The vision 
had lived in my thoughts, and I was not long 
discovering that my lot and its gloomy scenes 
were henceforth to be one. I bowed my head, 
making no murmur ; and so on, on I have \van- 
dered, reeling off the years so lonely, so weary, 
and so dark that only God hath light to count 
them by. 

But then the end and that purple dawn from 
afar, breaking its rainbow waves at our feet — 
for thou wast indeed there, Mortara, thy noble 
self, calm and sad, like one who had suffered 
much and waited long, as thou wilt be again. 

But for that conviction, so long since verified 
to a certainty, I might as well be a child, and cry 
for the stars in the running brooks, or sigh for 
the ribbons of the rainbow, as longer look for 
response to word or entreaty of mine. Ah ! no, 
had I sceptres, many as the rounds in Jacob's 
ladder, and kingdoms, broad as the worlds it 
climbed, I could now never hope to win thee 
back with thy heart and thy love. 

But while we rule ourselves we are over- 
ruled ; and as the Sun casts not his shadows al- 
ways the same way, so the shades that have 
clouded my morning the evening will turn across 
thy heart, and ere long thy spirit will come again 
to seek sympathy from mine, even as now my 



MORTARA. 115 

thoughts are forever turning for light and for 
love to thee. 

Thus love maketh the light to our dreams, and 
planteth hope in the midst of our sorrow. In 
darkness and in danger, too, love cometh to us 
ever, ever, now warning, now chiding, now bless- 
ing, and always safely guarding. Love light- 
ens labor, shortens distance, and quickens time. 
Love teaches to forgive, helps to forget, and 
whitens the memory of all things. Love paints 
every hope, brightens every scene, and maketh 
beautiful whatsoe'er it shines on. Love is wis- 
dom, love is high, love is holy. Love is God. 
Love gloweth in the hearts of the angels, wreathes 
the smiles on their brows, and melts the kisses on 
their lips. Love is the light of the beautiful be- 
yond, and to meet thee there, Mortara, is more 
than hope. I shall know thee by the charm of 
thy spirit, by the name on my lips, by the smile 
on my heart, and by thy voice, though blent with 
the harp-notes on the airs of heaven. 

Helen. 



PART XI. 

St. Paul, Minn., July 6, 1858. 

MoRTARA, — While these burning words from 
your pen to-day are but so many golden links in 
the chain that must forever bind our souls, I 
can only hold them from me, and bow my head 
and weep, so relentless seems the hand that 
after so many years lifts the veil but to reveal 
the impassable gulf between. 

I never doubted your honor, Mortara, nor 
feared to trust either you or your love. But 
honor is not your religion, and you could no 
more have stricken the law of your people and 
the dying charge of your noble father from the 
deep written page of your being than my heart 
banish from its memory a life-long vow and the 
command : " That which is gone out of thy lips 
thou shalt keep and perform." No, and when I 
discovered your unrest, and saw how plainly the 
finger of Providence was pointing our paths 
asunder, I hastened to make you free, free. 
Sweet Almah said you sat long hours gazing 
into my letter, as if it had been a leaf from the 
book of fate ; and then you arose, bade all a 
long adieu, and went on board the ship. 

Two years dragged themselves slowly by, and 
then from half a world away came your letter. 



118 MORTAR A. 

telling me over and over of your unabated love, 
and claiming still the guardianship of my heart 
if not of myself, while with promises of return 
the tomb of your absence was garlanded anew ; 
birds of hope sang above it, and though so far 
away, even to know that you lived lent a charm 
to life which now, alas ! is gone, gone, forever 
and forever gone. Ah ! yes, my life's last trust 
is broken, and all save its one sweet star of faith 
in the beautiful beyond gone down forever. 
The past gleams over the ruin but to reveal its 
desolation and its woe, and cherished memories 
come back but to smile and turn to scorn. 

Oh ! how live with the cold corse of thy love 
thus forever shut up in my soul ? How bear it 
on, far over the waste of years, sad and alone, — 
a hopeless, nameless sorrow for which the world 
has no solace and no tears? But the blessing 
of love is loving, and a thousand, thousand 
times better thus to lose thee than never to have 
known thee and never to have loved thee ; and 
far, far better, too, never to meet thee again than 
never to have parted. 

To-day, like faded hopes and withered leaves, 
my returned letters are falling around me, re- 
vealing alas ! but too sadly the autumn and the 
searing frosts whence they came. Upon the 
margins of many of them, though, are dear, hal- 
lowed words, which, like spirit-rods, move upon 
the past, bringing back even thyself, Mortara, 
as long ago, holding out the jeweled mantle of 



MORTARA. 119 

thy love to shield me from the world, the cloud, 
and the storm. 

Alas ! be these letters of ten years the Galeed 
and Mizpah between us ; and would we stood 
now like Jacob and Laban beneath those solemn 
woods that, parting as we are, — to meet upon 
the same plane of life never, never, nevermore, 
— I might tell you with my own lips that as I 
still hope to meet you in heaven I would not dry 
one tear, turn one shadow, nor lift one footprint 
from all the lonely, toiling past. No, no ! We 
might have joined our hands, but our duties 
and the high interests of our souls, never ! And 
though this final breaking of the ties and the 
pledges that bound us robbed my life tenfold 
more desolate, I should still, Mortara, more than 
forgive you, while Heaven sees in my heart some- 
thing akin to pity for her whom the angels have 
sent to lead you farther and farther from me, 
that henceforth I may know only duty, and watch 
only for the white hands that beckon its lonely 
way. 

With fortunes almost greater than fell to the 
Prince of Uz in his brightest days, and more 
than all, with one waiting to be your bride who 
doubtless loves you for yourself alone, and whose 
smiles make the promised rose leaves to your, 
brimming cup — ah ! yes, Mortara, with so much 
to be glad for it were worse than selfish not to 
offer vou most heartfelt consfratulations ; and 
now, from a heart baptized with many tears, I 



120 MORTARA. 

pray for you love to light all the shades of life, 
the honors of this world, and peace with the 
next to crown its goal. 

But oh ! as God is love, " love wills to be 
loved ; " and when even now, upon the eve of 
your great happiness, you still whisper hack to 
me of sorrow and regret linked with the burn- 
ing words, " forever, forever," whether these 
words mock or bless I bless you for them ; and 
while I wander on, filling up my allotted part of 
our destiny, they will be sweet vestal-lights far 
o'er the weary way, inviting prayers for you 
still ; and though we meet no more till in the 
closino- scene of the vision or till the records in 
heaven have grown pale with years, fond memo- 
ries of you will be still circling around my heart, 
and thy name still dear on my lips. 

Thus, Mortara, bidding you farewell, I dig 
and bury my heart again, leaving only the 
heaven-lighted star of faith in the beautiful be- 
yond smiling above its lonely tomb ; while to 
me the past, the future, and life all is but a sea 
of tears, whose dark shores lie strewn with the 
wreck of hopes. Helen. 



PART XII. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S JOURNAL. 

New York, May 17, 1870. — Twenty years 
have worn their furrows on my brow, and length- 
ened their shadows o'er my heart. Twenty long- 
weary years, alas ! have clustered their lonely 
days in my memory until I had said : Love in 
me is dead, and learned to smile back upon the 
weakness of the past with almost pity. But 
now, when seven scenes of the vision have been 
unfolded, and all their heavy portent rounded 
upon the years of my life ; when all that has 
made the burden of their wandering's liofht and 
the import of them beautiful is so nearly accom- 
plished ; when the blessed twain whom Heaven 
robbed poor, the better to enrich them with love, 
are worshipping again beneath vine and fig-tree 
of their own ; when all their nestlings save one 
have taken wing to build nests and rear nest- 
lings of their own ; when so little of all that 
was foreshadowed remains to be waited for and 
watched for, I come here, and lo ! from half a 
world away, Mortara's bark lies moored again by 
this hallowed shore. Indeed, here, — even here, 
where Ave parted so long, long ago, — amid a 
bustlino" crowd of all nations and ton2:ues, anofel- 



122 MORTARA. 

led, we sat down so near to each other that our 
hands mioht have touched. 

Ah ! yes, we have met again, met again ! He 
has been here and sat in this room while we 
talked our souls regal in the light of the beauti- 
ful bygone, — talked as though we ourselves had 
indeed crossed paths in some sf)here remote, save 
that, in all, our thoughts were still luminous 
with sweet remembrance. Talked, talked ; and 
then at last rising to depart, how dear and beau- 
tiful it was of him to clasp my two hands warm 
in his once more as of old, not to steal kisses 
from my pouting, complaining lips again, but to 
tell me in words that might melt from the lips 
of one angel to another how precious and how 
sacred I am to him and have ever been ; how he 
has cherished me in his heart of hearts as some- 
thing not altogether of this world, and shall go 
down to the grave even with my name on his 
lips. 

faith, thou mightiest gift of God ; thou 
white-winged trust in Him who doeth all things 
well ; thou one light over His darkest provi- 
dences, lingering to cheer when all else has 
passed away, thy whisper upon the dull ear of 
the night : He will come again, he will come 
again, I heard in the breezes, and my heart 
shaped it out of the hoarse voices of the winds ! 
I heard it in the echoes of the past. I heard 
it everywhere, and believed and watched and 
waited. And now, like a resurrection from de- 



MORTAR A. 123 

spair, his voice rings again through all the silent 
chambers of my soul. 

Oh, this one long Purhn day, whose clawn 
brought so much to be grateful for, and whose 
evening leaves nothhig to regret ! Once I would 
fain have stopped time and basked forever in 
the rich effulgence of its beams, braided rainbow 
hopes from them, and fringed every cloud with 
their light. But alas! what are toils for, sor- 
rows for, and tears for, if not to temper our feel- 
ings and fold down the wings to our fancies, 
unchain our hearts from the world, and put us 
linked hands with the angels who seem some- 
times to forsake their sweet guidance, and rush 
us forward across Rubicons to destinies them- 
selves even would fain hide from ; just as, 
through the long weary years, they have been 
leading me through phase after phase of that 
dark foreshadowed way whose darker reality 
turned the morning of my life into a night of 
years and changed the world to a thing of gloom 
that everywhere has overawed me with fear, — 
that fated vision alas ! now so nearly ended, 
but whose closing scene perchance lapsed itself 
to within the boundary of the unseen, and the 
day is no more to dawn for me here ! 

Have mercy then, most merciful God ! Be 
thou my morning and my soul's beautiful even- 
ing ! Shine thou in upon my steps, and grant 
that I keep close rank and file with those who 
have washed their robes and made them white 



124 MORTARA. 

in the blood of the Lamb ; and whose pilgrim 
feet make haste to touch the chilling waters that 
forever roll between this and the far-off land of 
better friends, better light, and better love ! 

May 19, 1870. — Mortara has been to see 
me once more, and oh ! how good and noble he 
is ! All up and down the city he has sought 
out widows and orphans, the old and the young, 
and poured into their laps the golden fruits of 
his toils, making rich amends to those who suf- 
fered by his own losses in Texas a quarter of a 
century ago. To my poor heart, too, he has 
given back its wasted years, its broken sighs, 
and its unanswered voices, covering all with that 
lofty praise which fans the flame whence springs 
the light of all true glory — a just pride in one's 
own soul. 

After counting; over the thousand and one 
heartaches his friendship has cost me, chiding 
himself for this and blaming himself for that ; 
naming each and every disappointment and sor- 
row, as though he too knew them all by heart, 
he said : — 

" When Heaven laid in the grave all that you 
loved and clouded over the sky of your young 
life, it still left you peace of mind, which I 
most cruelly destroyed. I wooed you to forget 
your promise to the dead. I won your heart 
and sought your hand ; and then, because of a 
change in my circumstances, I purposely chilled 
you until, divining my intent, all too nobly you 



MORTARA. 125 

made me free. If I had not loved you before 
I surely loved you then, but a sense of obliga- 
tion to the members of my bereaved family in 
Europe triumphed and I went away. Not to be 
happy, though ; — no, God forbid ! Your image 
haunted me constantly, and as constantly you 
were present with me in my thoughts, I knew 
that I had left you to sacrifice yourself to what 
I deemed a vague superstition, or at best a mis- 
taken sense of duty ; and if your angels could 
speak they would tell you with what solicitude I 
followed you in your wanderings until the two 
years I was to wait for you had elapsed, and 
then I wrote you, claiming you still, — just as 
though I had never been selfish enough to accept 
the freedom that you so loftily cast at my feet. 

" But you know the rest. Thrice I amassed 
a fortune and was on the eve of returning, and 
thrice I lost it. The unseen hands that led you 
so gently were against me, and whatever sur- 
jDrise I planned for you or whatever castles I 
built, all alike went to the ground. But that 
was no excuse for my ceasing to write you, nor 
had I any right to take umbrage at your de- 
clining to meet me half way. You awaited my 
return, and knowing that you did I married an- 
other. You have not gone unavenged, though ; 
and now, when my head has grown gray with 
years, I have come far out of my way to ask 
your forgiveness. Broken pledges make a hard 
pillow ; but oh ! only say that neither you nor 



126 MORTARA. 

your angels have aught laid up in your hearts 
against me that you do not or cannot forgive, 
and I shall go away a much happier man than 
when I came. I say your angels, for I have 
come to believe in them almost as much as I do 
in you. And since — by its war — your coun- 
try has ignored gold, and all its money has be- 
come so worthless and green, I cannot help 
having some faith in your vision also. On 
opening the first package of it that was sent out 
to us, I exclaimed : — 

" ^ Pray, what dark green stuif is this ? ' when, 
either by the association of the words or because 
anything from America always reminded me of 
you, my thoughts instantly reverted to the 
* gloomy old pillar,' the disappearance of the 
gold, and the dark green substitute coming in 
its stead. And so now, you see, in addition to 
all the rest I have the doubts I used to entertain 
of your vision to ask your pardon for also ; for 
of course you believe in it still, as well as you 
might after having lived through so many of its 
scenes, even to the lonely wanderings that I 
once thought so impossible. 

" Truly, that mysterious agency in human af- 
fairs that we call Providence has dealt strangely 
enough with you ; but stranger still has been 
the wonderful tenacity with which you have 
clung to its guidance, never doubting, never 
turning to the right nor to the left, but on, on 
to the end. 



MORTAR A. 127 

" Twenty years ago, when walking among the 
trees by the Bay and you first told me of the 
wandering life you were to lead, and that it had 
all been foreshadowed to you in a vision, I al- 
most doubted your sanity, for, remember, you 
had not even written the little book then, nor 
had you so much as dreamed of ever publish- 
ing one, as I knew. Not light enough even to 
walk by yourself ; no friends, no money, young, 
timid, and unsophisticated as a child, what won- 
der that I was puzzled to comprehend how such 
extensive travels or endless wanderings were to 
be accomplished ? 

" You believed, though, and trusted on all 
the same, and talked of your eventful past and 
your yet more eventful future in your own- sweet 
musical way, until I began to feel that it would 
not be a very unpleasant thing to travel or wan- 
der with you, and so proposed to become your 
escort for life. 

" Your good angels had you in charge, though, 
and it is only just to say that you have been the 
noblest and most self-sacrificing woman who has 
ever lived ; and if I had my way, the world 
should build a little Mecca around your tomb 
when you are gone, and make pilgrimages to it 
to the end of time. 

" But come," he said, looking at his watch, 
" the time is short, and I do all the talking this 
morning. Am I not to hear from your lips be- 
fore I go that you have crowned all by forgiv- 



128 MORTAR A. 

ing me everything, and that you still intend to 
find me away in that beautiful land of souls be- 
yond the grave that you used to write me so 
much about, and which you and your letters 
have done more to make me believe in than even 
Moses and the prophets? " 

I strove to reply, but ere the words grew au- 
dible too long pent-up feeling dissolved them to 
tears that, raining down over the two dear hands 
holding mine, baptized them with something 
more than forgiveness. They told plainer than 
any words could tell, of the love still forever 
burning in my soul ; and then once, only once, 
he whispered my name, coupled it with : — 

" God bless you ! " and again I was alone in 
the world, alone, alone, alone, until the very 
loneliness frosted my heart pale and blanched 
the world too desolate to endure. 

May 20, 1870. — Mortara has sailed; gone, 
gone, forever and forever gone ! Hope is gone. 
Youth is 2"one. Life is o^one. The sun rises no 
more. The moon has left the sky, and the stars 
have forgotten their places. The friends that 
were have passed away, and there is no more 
anything left in the world to wait for or to 
watch for save the closing scene of the vision, in 
which, wherever it be, in this world or the next, 
through the radiance beaming above and around 
me my dazzled eyes will turn to look on him. 

Verily, the to be foreshadows itself ; and how 
real and how eternal his presence in that mystic 



MORTARA. 129 

scene broke over my soul again, even to the 
downcast eyes, when he said : — 

" The shadows that have so long clouded your 
morning have begun already to darken my sky, 
and the day is not so bright to me as it was." 

Oh, thus even our lives are one, our destinies 
one, our souls one. We are one, and one we 
shall at last be in God's great home of love, 
where all bereavements are healed and the jos- 
tled asunder in this world forever united. Ah ! 
there how passing sweet 't will be to live and 
love him and have him thus ever by my side, all 
blest and holy, no sweeter voice to lure him and 
no brighter smile to make him forget ; his lips 
love's rosy fountains, and the glances of his eyes 
the sunny rivulets of poesy, and his voice like 
the murmur of the waters, coming to me ever, 
ever, ever, mingling with my soul's song by 
day and melting into music the dreams of my 
thoughts by night ! 

Thus love annihilates death even, blots away 
all record of time, and creates the world it lives 
in ; conjures back arms to embrace, lips to kiss, 
and eyes to smile ; whispers its own praises and 
breathes its own names of endearment. 

But oh ! the lost are not all lost while in vis- 
ions of hope and fancy we may thus call them 
back, and in their shining presence relive each 
glowing scene, relight each waning glance, and 
retouch each fading memory. 



All communications for the author may 
he addressed : Mrs. Helen A. De Kroyft, 
Aldrich Place, Dansville, N. Y. 



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